Who’s in control and why…

August 16, 2006 by annadulcekelly.

Well, we’d been having internet connection problems for some unknown reason.  First the cable connection became unstable…sometimes the browser works, sometimes only the email works, sometimes nothing works.  We had a technician come out and “fix” it although my connection remained sluggish.  And in the time spent waiting for this cable internet technician, for some unknown reason, my laptop quit picking up the DSL connection.  So for the most part I was without a connection, and considering that there are 2 sources in the house, that was rather frustrating.

 So…DH told me that his youngest was asking all sorts of questions…like why I need a laptop and a desktop.  He most probably asked too why I should be on DSL at all with the laptop.  Whatever he asked, DH told him he shouldn’t be complaining because I am paying for the DSL connection.  And well, when I got really, really, REALLY frustrated, that came in handy.

 Oh yeah, I pay for the DSL connection…and yet I’m not connected.  Let’s see, when I had that modem wired to my PC, there was all the hoopla about the cable running from the kitchen to my computer, and possibly causing people to trip over it.  So…I thought, I’m not sewing right now, and I’ve pretty much freed up some space downstairs…and I’m not sewing at the moment…and the phone outlet is right there where my stuff is.

 So, the desktop went downstairs, the laptop went upstairs, the sewing table became the computer table, and I took back the DSL modem from DH’s daughter’s room.  No reason why the person paying for DSL shouldn’t enjoy what’s being paid for…she probably hates me for that but…it’s just the last item on a long list, I’m sure.

I’m not totally mean, I’m spending over $200 to get a technician over here, hook us up with a better modem, hook up the 2 brats’ computers wirelessly, and my laptop too.  I’m going to find out if there is a way to regulate everyone’s bandwidth/traffic, so I don’t get kicked out because someone’s using Limewire and hogging all the bandwidth.  If nothing else, I would like to know if I can unplug them when they’re giving me grief.

 The youngest brat apparently is having problems with sound.  They appear to be missing some codecs.  Also he’s having connection problems.  Well, considering how unpleasant he’s been lately and the fact that he’s sharing that PC with another person who just can’t do anything to make anyone else happy, I’m not too thrilled to take the time to fix that PC.  I have decided that whether I fix something or not will depend on how happy the owner’s made me.  If the owner hasn’t been easy to live with, I wouldn’t feel obliged to do them any favors.  Fair enough, I think.

 So…considering that I’m spending all this money so the brats can get connected, I think they should at least stay out of my way if they can’t be pleasant.  I will see how much control I can have over this DSL thing.  They’re not getting a free ride…they want to be happy, I need to be happy too.

If DH balks, which he most probably will, when someone complains of me taking them off the network for using up too much bandwidth, heck, he can have this account.  I’ll get myself a phone, and I’ll get myself a separate DSL network.  He can resume being responsible for paying their DSL/phone bill…good luck keeping that up, knowing him.  Either way, I will not take any more crap.

There are some trades to be made, I can already think of one…we’ll see how it goes, and we’ll see just how badly they want their PC’s connected to the internet.  I’m not hard to please.  They’re just really dense.  Not my genes, not my fault.

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About my old posts…

August 16, 2006 by annadulcekelly.

Yes, I know, the font changes, and then some are in italics and some are bold.  But you know what, I don’t care.  I’m too tired to go through all that, and it’s too much work.  Let’s just let it go and look forward to newer, more uniform-looking posts.  Yes, yippee…I’m tired…and I don’t do perky.

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Q&A 2

August 16, 2006 by annadulcekelly.

FOR AN ALL-EXPENSE-PAID, ONE-WEEK VACATION ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO KILL A BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLY BY PULLING OFF ITS WINGS? WHAT ABOUT STEPPING ON A COCKROACH? (05/12/06)

Unless that butterfly is endangered, I probably won’t think twice about it. As for stepping on a cockroach, it helps that I’ve done it countless times before. A typical American female might find it repulsive and very disgusting. I have had roaches fly at me, land on me, etc and I have no qualms about stepping on them at all. And just to disgust anyone who’s prone to be disgusted, I like to step on them until I hear something snap…and sometimes I make sure the head is detached from the rest of it. There, I said it. If I kill 52 cockroaches, can I go on an all-expense-paid one-year vacation?

FOLLOW-UP: WHY DOES A BEAUTIFUL CREATURE MERIT MORE COMPASSION THAN AN UGLY ONE? DOES IT DAMAGE US PSYCHOLOGICALLY WHEN WE DESTROY SOMETHING WE FIND BEAUTIFUL? HOW MEANINGFUL IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PULLING THE WINGS OFF AN INSECT AND STEPPING ON IT? IS THE DECISION OF HOW TO KILL SOMETHING A MINOR DECISION WHEN BALANCED AGAINST THE DECISION OF WHETHER OR NOT TO KILL IT AT ALL? (05/12/06)

Well, from my answer above, the beautiful creature didn’t really merit more compassion than the ugly one. So therefore the first question does not apply. I don’t think it damages us psychologically to destroy something beautiful. There is just this widespread idea that beautiful things take more effort to make. But we have to keep in mind that that’s a human way of thinking, and sometimes humans do take longer to make more beautiful things. Let us keep in mind too that nowhere is it said that whoever created everything around us took longer to make the prettier things, or that he/she/it even made all these things individually. Who knows, all bugs, both ugly and pretty, might have evolved from a single creature. Then some of them went on to become prettier and more fragile and then some uglier and stronger. I don’t think it’s meaningful at all, the difference between pulling the wings off an insect and stepping on it. I just would rather not pull the wings off a roach if I have to touch it with my bare hands. If I have tools, sure, for a one-week vacation, I would. The decision of how to kill something is quite minor, yes, unless we’re talking about humans, and then you probably will want to make sure you do it in such a way that nothing points to you after all is done.

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO MURDER AN INNOCENT PERSON IF IT WOULD END HUNGER IN THE WORLD? (05/12/06)

My first impulse is to say, for the good of many sometimes one must be sacrificed. But after a few more moments of thinking about it, I probably won’t be willing to do that. Warning to most people: the following statements might sound callous and offensive. Let us consider for a moment the causes of world hunger. First thing that comes to mind is overpopulation. Let us at least be honest and admit that the whole reason there is food shortage in some parts of the world is that there are too many people and not enough food to go around. While I’m not saying that these people are all at fault for their areas being short on food, there is a certain level of inability to use what resources there are in the vicinity to either produce food or earn money to buy food. If overpopulation is the problem, morals aside, wouldn’t the solution be for there to be fewer people in the said places so there are a lot fewer people to share what little there is? What I believe to be the second cause of world hunger is the fact that with all the advances in science and medicine, most of the diseases that used to keep the numbers down now have cures or vaccines and people have found ways to live longer. I do not propose to get rid of all the vaccines and cures but perhaps distribute them in such a way that it does not encourage overpopulation in some areas. That is, if the place is already crowded, it might not be the best place to spread the cure. That’ll give people 2 options. First, let the sick die and feed the healthier ones (like most animals do) and then maybe procreate less too…and second, leave the area for “greener pastures” which just might result in a better distribution of population per square mile, which might mean more food to go around for everyone. Humans have advanced so much that sometimes I think it’s to our disadvantage. Nature shows us that the rest of the animal world do not nurture their sick and weak like we do. The sick and weak fall prey to other animals or are left behind to fend for themselves. then the healthier ones get the food and live on. Survival of the fittest. Humans are “smarter” and so therefore we have decided that everyone has the right to live. But we never really stop and think about what price we pay for keeping everyone alive as much as possible. All the money being spent on keeping some people alive with expensive drugs and procedures…that much less spent on basic needs for others. In my mind there should be fewer people all around. That would end world hunger.

IF GOD APPEARED TO ME IN A SERIES OF VIVID AND MOVING DREAMS AND TOLD YOU TO LEAVE EVERYTHING BEHIND, TRAVEL ALONE TO THE RED SEA AND BECOME A FISHERMAN, WHAT WOULD YOU DO? WHAT IF YOU WERE TOLD TO SACRIFICE YOUR CHILD? (05/12/06)

Three words: SORRY, WRONG NUMBER.

WHAT IS YOUR MOST TREASURED MEMORY? (05/12/06)

My most treasured memory is that of a dream. I dreamt I was at a party and then my grandpa came, wearing his usual thin white t-shirt and PJ bottoms. He didn’t say anything, but we waltzed. I honestly don’t remember hugging him, ever, although I probably did when I was younger. And it felt good dancing with him because it was a chance to be close to him. Also I didn’t get to celebrate my 18th birthday like most do, and I didn’t have the “18 roses” waltz where traditionally I would have gotten to waltz with my grandpa, my dad, my brother, etc. I also didn’t have the “normal” wedding with the “normal” wedding reception which would have been yet another chance to dance with him. So that dream basically made up for all those lost opportunities. What made this dream even more special was, I dreamt this a few hours before my mom called me up to tell me that my grandpa has passed away. So in my mind, that was his way of saying goodbye to me. I had an inkling after I left that I will not see him alive again. And it felt bad knowing that he waited up to see me and Scott one more time before we left, and it didn’t happen. The dream made me feel better and provided something of a closure.

HAVE YOU EVER HATED ANYONE? IF SO, WHY AND FOR HOW LONG? (05/12/06)

Yes, of course. I hated this kid I grew up with, a boy about 3 years younger than me who had nothing better to do with his time than annoy the girls while we play. We tried to beat each other up anytime we were around each other and this went on for at least 2 years. We did talk later on, after he’d come out of the closet and grown up a bit, but I still didn’t like him. There was this girl the first time I went to college, a wannabe who honestly thought she was all that…she had an attitude I couldn’t stand. It got so bad that one time my friends felt the need to take me out for a walk before I beat her up. Now, there is the older stepson who is stupidity personified. At 17 he believed that a meadow was a big lake. He put a crockpot on a hot stove to boil water either late last year or early this year, and of course broke the thing and still hasn’t replaced it. He’d gone off the road or hit a deer in his grandpa’s car at least 6 times in the past 3 years. Of course he never shouldered any of the expenses incurred by these moments of stupid driving (which he claimed happened when he was driving at a reasonable speed given the road conditions…yeah right!). He would not let anyone in his room or touch his stuff but he thinks nothing of taking other people’s things (especially his dad’s) without asking for permission or sleeping in his brother’s room while the kid is elsewhere. He would claim to share his groceries with everyone, eat most of the eggs his dad bought, and complain when his dad cooks up some of the ones he bought for himself…so much for sharing. He thinks that he can afford to live alone in an apartment, pay the bills and still eat the way he does on minimum wage. Uh huh. As for how long I’ve hated him…since I knew him, still do now, and will continue to do so until such time that he grows a brain.

WOULD YOU RATHER BE GIVEN $10,000 FOR YOUR OWN USE OR $100,000 TO GIVE ANONYMOUSLY TO STRANGERS? WHAT IF YOU COULD KEEP $1,000,000 OR GIVE AWAY $20,000,000? (06/02/2006)

In either case I’d rather have the money I can keep for myself. Call me selfish, but if I had the money to give anonymously to others, it will have me wondering. Why can’t someone else do it, and why can’t I be one of the later recipients instead? I can think of a million things to do with the money. There’s places inside and outside the house that needs repair or remodeling. I could, with $1,000,000, convince my hubby that we can afford to have a kid of our own, and that might take my mind off of the imperfections of his kids (LOL!). I could use a real craft room. There’s just so many things I can use the money for. I can get my whole family here with the cool million…set them up and all. I deserve the money as much as anyone else. If I’m to give it away to others, I would want to keep some to myself. So between giving it away and keeping it to myself, I’d rather keep it. You can’t blame me for being honest, now can you?

IF YOU KNEW THERE WOULD BE A NUCLEAR WAR IN ONE WEEK, WHAT WOULD YOU DO? (06/02/2006)

Short answer: I’ll probably max out my credit cards trying to get to the most obscure place in the world, or as close to it as I can. The fewer people there are in a place, the less likely to be bombed, I think, unless it’s a testing ground for weapons. Hopefully I won’t pick the testing ground.

WOULD YOU ACCEPT TWENTY YEARS OF EXTRAORDINARY HAPPINESS AND FULFILLMENT IF IT MEANT YOU WOULD DIE AT THE END OF THE PERIOD? (06/02/2006)

Yes, I would…with the knowledge of my death after 20 years of great happiness, I think I would have enough time to prepare for it. If it’s a full 20 years of extraordinary happiness, then I shouldn’t feel too sad when the end is near. I would most likely be happy to have had the experience. I don’t think anyone can truly say that they’d had 20 years worth of extraordinary happiness and fulfillment in their lives. No one is constantly happy. And it would be really interesting to be experiencing the impossible.

WHAT IS THE GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT OF YOUR LIFE? IS THERE ANYTHING YOU HOPE TO DO THAT IS EVEN BETTER? (06/02/2006)

Nothing comes to mind. I guess I should say…the fact that I haven’t murdered anyone yet. I would have thought that as angry as I’ve gotten in the past, that I would have already stabbed someone to death. Miraculously that has not happened yet. I am not saying it never will…everyone has their limits…I know I’ve come close to it quite a few times. There are a lot of things that I hope to do in the future that might be considered better than not having killed someone. Maybe…get away with having done it? Not really. I think I hope to sometime get over my lack of focus and use all my art supplies before buying more. Considering how I am now, that would be a great accomplishment.

WHAT IS YOUR MOST ENJOYABLE DREAM? YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE? (06/02/2006)

I don’t really have a dream I consider most enjoyable. Sadly, the better dreams are easily forgotten upon waking up. I would remember when I woke up that they were nice dreams but have only the vaguest memories of them for a short time. As for my worst nightmare, it would be the one where I shifted between 2 characters. It was set in medieval times or something like it. We were in a tower. There were 2 females, good friends, or maybe twins. One of them was engaged to a good man, probably a prince. The scene started in a room with a long dining table and a big stained glass window. In the next room, for some reason, there was a wooden coffin, surrounded with a lot of white roses. Then suddenly one was dead and in the coffin, and I was that girl. The other bent to kiss her and we exchanged places so she was trapped in the coffin. Her fiancé came and thought I was her. At this point I shifted to being the girl in the coffin and I shook the coffin as hard as I could to get the man’s attention. He found out, and then I shifted again to the bad female. He was furious and then he started to charge at me. I ran towards the window and ran right into it. It broke and I started falling. The falling wasn’t really scary. I was just watching the ground come closer. Then there was nothing. It was black and very quiet. I guess at that time, the bad female died. Shaking the coffin was actually scarier than the fall.

WOULD YOU GIVE UP HALF OF WHAT YOU NOW OWN FOR A PILL THAT WOULD PERMANENTLY CHANGE YOU SO THAT ONE HOUR OF SLEEP EACH DAY WOULD FULLY REFRESH YOU? FOLLOW-UP: DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE ENOUGH TIME? IF NOT, WHAT WOULD GIVE YOU THAT FEELING? HOW MUCH HAS YOUR ATTITUDE ABOUT TIME CHANGED AS YOU AGED? (06/02/2006)

Heck, yeah! I always did say that if we didn’t need sleep to recharge, I would gladly skip it. I obviously do not feel that I have enough time. There are just so many things to learn and do, and not a long enough life. What would give me the feelling of having enough time? Realistically, maybe if I didn’t have to work to earn money, then I’d have time to do all the things I want to do. Well, that’s as close to realistic as I can get. But that pill that will allow me to recharge with one hour of sleep would be wonderful. My attitude about time…it just seems that the older I get the faster it goes and I never seem to have accomplished enough by the end of the year. I hear it gets worse in time. That must be the worst thing about getting older.

IF YOU KNEW YOU COULD DEVOTE YOURSELF TO ANY SINGLE OCCUPATION–MUSIC, WRITING, ACTING, BUSINESS, POLITICS, MEDICINE, ETC.–AND BE AMONG THE BEST AND MOST SUCCESSFUL IN THE WORLD AT IT, WHAT WOULD YOU CHOOSE? IF YOU KNEW YOU ONLY HAD A 10% CHANCE OF BEING SO SUCCESSFUL, WOULD YOU STILL PUT IN THE EFFORT? (06/02/2006)

My first impulse is to say “painting” but there’s hardly any painter that gets famous and whose paintings get sold for a lot of money while still alive. I would say “computer sciences” since that seems to be the most lucrative area at this time. I would love to come up with something that everyone will use…be the next Bill Gates without all the hatred from disgruntled Windows users. And no, I wouldn’t put in the effort if there’s less than half the chance I’d be so successful. I’m there already, why exert effort to get nowhere?

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Q&A 1

August 16, 2006 by annadulcekelly.

WELCOME TO THE BRAND NEW Q&A SECTION OF MY BLOG (new as of 10/6/05, that is)

I decided that since there is a lack of ranting on my part, mainly because I’m letting a lot of things pass without bothering me so much (in other words, I don’t give a rat’s ass), I thought I could at least answer some questions that might just give you a wee bit of idea of how my mind works. And I’m not talking about the questions that we’ve all been writing answers to in those kiddie autograph books since we first learned how to write. I mean real questions you probably haven’t asked yourself. These questions are going to come from a bunch of books which contain nothing but questions. It’s an interesting way to spend time and an interesting way to get to know someone. Feel free to send me answers to these questions as well, if you’d like. Email me at I decided that since there is a lack of ranting on my part, mainly because I’m letting a lot of things pass without bothering me so much (in other words, I don’t give a rat’s ass), I thought I could at least answer some questions that might just give you a wee bit of idea of how my mind works. And I’m not talking about the questions that we’ve all been writing answers to in those kiddie autograph books since we first learned how to write. I mean real questions you probably haven’t asked yourself. These questions are going to come from a bunch of books which contain nothing but questions. It’s an interesting way to spend time and an interesting way to get to know someone. Feel free to send me answers to these questions as well, if you’d like. Email me at answers@annavkelly.com and I promise your emails will remain private. There will probably be a bunch of these pages as I add stuff to it. Like most people I do change my mind often so I’m going to date my answers just so we can keep track of what frame of mind I was in at the time. I might or might not add stuff later on as my mind changes…we’ll see. So…let’s get started.

FOR A PERSON YOU LOVED DEEPLY, WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO MOVE TO A DISTANT COUNTRY KNOWING THERE WOULD BE LITTLE CHANCE OF SEEING YOUR FRIENDS OR FAMILY AGAIN?

I have moved to a distant country for a person I loved deeply…that’s why I’m in the US instead of the Philippines. However, there is more than just a little chance of seeing my friends and family again. In fact my mom has visited twice already, my dad once and my favorite sister once. And I had gone back there too once. Let’s say I’m not in the situation I’m in right now, I probably would move to a distant country for a loved one IF that person will always make me feel that I’m special, that my sacrifice will not be in vain, that he realizes what a big leap that was for me. If that loved one will not make me feel alone in any way, if he’d take the extra effort to make sure I don’t get homesick and that I find ways to contact the people I might not see again, then yes, I’d do it. 10/6/05

DO YOU BELIEVE IN GHOSTS OR EVIL SPIRITS? WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO SPEND A NIGHT ALONE IN A REMOTE HOUSE THAT IS SUPPOSEDLY HAUNTED?

I do not recall seeing ghosts…although I’ve been told that I have. I do believe that dead people and other supernatural beings are around us and we’re just mostly not open enough to be aware of them. I wouldn’t want to spend a night alone in a supposedly haunted house, for 2 reasons. Firstly, I don’t want to tempt these beings. If people say they’re there, I’ll take their word for it and leave it at that. I don’t need a wild display of ghostly presence. Second, I do have a very active imagination. Even if that house turns out not to be haunted at all, with the way my mind is, I’m prone to think it is haunted anyway. I’d probably come up with a million otherwise insignificant things that I would insist were signs of haunting. Every little creak, every mirror, every tree outside the window…there are just a lot of things that can be construed as spooky by someone who is spooked for no good reason. 10/6/05

IF YOU WERE TO DIE THIS EVENING WITH NO OPPORTUNITY TO COMMUNICATE WITH ANYONE, WHAT WOULD YOU REGRET NOT HAVING TOLD SOMEONE? WHY HAVEN’T YOU TOLD THEM YET?

Hmmm, tough question. For some reason I’m leaning towards telling the people I dislike or hate what exactly I think is wrong with them. I would love to have a few minutes before I die to do that but if those few minutes are just not available to me, then yes, I would regret not having done that. Why haven’t I told them yet? Well, for starters I don’t want to get into a fight. Second, it’s pretty useless. Third, there isn’t much of an effect on the person if the one telling them is alive and well; however, if you’re dying they just stand there feeling they are obliged to listen to you before you die and I think that would be the perfect time to tell them what lousy people they are and why. For the most part, I’m referring to my husband’s kids here. Yes, I think they’re all lousy. 10/6/05

IF YOU COULD SPEND ONE YEAR IN PERFECT HAPPINESS BUT AFTERWARD WOULD REMEMBER NOTHING OF THE EXPERIENCE WOULD YOU DO SO? IF NOT, WHY NOT?

Well, that seems to me a total waste of time. Sure, one year you’re perfectly happy but if you later can’t figure out what the heck you did that one year and if you’re going to spend so much time wishing you could remember any part of it, then it’s bound to be pretty frustrating. All I would ever think is that I wasted a whole year. Never mind that I was perfectly happy; what is the sense in being perfectly happy when you can’t look back and recall those times? 10/6/05

Follow-up question: WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT: ACTUAL EXPERIENCES, OR THE MEMORIES THAT REMAIN WHEN THE EXPERIENCES ARE OVER?

To me, they are equally important, although the memories are more lasting. The experiences themselves shape us into what we are and teach us what we know. The memories of such experiences provide us with something to look back at. If it’s a pleasant memory then we look back to feel happy about something we’d done. If it’s not a very pleasant one, then we look back to remember what lesson we learned from it or what we’d had to overcome to get where we are now. 10/6/05

IF A NEW MEDICINE WERE DEVELOPED THAT WOULD CURE ARTHRITIS BUT CAUSE A FATAL REACTION IN 1 PERCENT OF THOSE WHO TOOK IT, WOULD YOU WANT IT TO BE RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC?

I think that for the sake of the many people who are suffering from arthritis, I would want it to be released to the public but with a disclaimer. I would want for there to be a warning, very visible, very hard to ignore, about the risk there is in taking it. And then it will depend on the people with arthritis whether they want to risk their life or not. I would think too that a contract of sorts would be in order, so they won’t go after whoever came up with the medicine. And in the meantime, I think there should be research going on to come up with a safer alternative with the same healing effect. And I’m also thinking that there will be something learned from those who’ll unfortunately die from taking it…maybe their autopsies will reveal something that might further the development of a better version of the medicine. 10/6/05

YOU DISCOVER THAT YOUR WONDERFUL ONE-YEAR OLD CHILD IS, BECAUSE OF A MIXUP AT THE HOSPITAL, NOT YOURS. WOULD YOU WANT TO EXCHANGE THE CHILD TO TRY TO CORRECT THE MISTAKE?

I honestly don’t know. What I do know is I would want to know the medical history of the parents of the child that I have so I am ready for whatever might come up. I probably will see what the other set of parents want. Also, there will be some consideration as to whether they are giving my child a good life or not. I wouldn’t want to break the bond that they’ve established with the child, and if they don’t want an exchange I probably won’t insist on it; I would probably have bonded just as well with their child by this time. It would be nice though to be keeping in touch just so we can all keep tabs on our respective children. Then maybe we can sue the hospital together, for putting us in such a sticky situation. 10/6/05

DO YOU THINK THAT THE WORLD WILL BE A BETTER OR A WORSE PLACE 100 YEARS FROM NOW?

I think that would largely depend on what happens between now and 100 years hence. If nothing like Armageddon happens, or if no big meteor strikes the earth and causes life to start over from square one, and people go on like they do now, I think things would be much worse. The world now is a lot worse than when I was growing up, and I don’t mean just on the global level. Even on the family level it’s worse. Kids respect and fear nothing and they run the household. Parents are totally powerless and therefore unable to raise the kids properly. And every generation is worse at raising kids than the preceding one in this respect so I am pretty sure that the world in 100 years would be hell, that is if no one has managed to nuke the whole place yet and killed everything except the roaches. 10/6/05

WOULD YOU RATHER BE A MEMBER OF A WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP SPORTS TEAM OR BE THE CHAMPION OF AN INDIVIDUAL SPORT? WHICH SPORT WOULD YOU CHOOSE?

While I do get along just fine with the majority of people I come in contact with, I still would rather not be part of a team if it can be helped. I would choose to be the champion of an individual sport. Being in a team denotes (at least to me) more responsibility than being in individual sports. Being in a team means having people depend on you not to screw up and drag them down with you. Being in a team will most likely mean resenting the person who’s considered the weakest link in the team. I would hate to be that weakest link and I would also hate to be the one who’s doing really well and thinking we can do without the weakest link. I would much rather be solely responsible for my own victories and failures. I would much rather not have people accusing me of not doing what’s best for the team. I think being in sports is pressure enough, knowing that there are fans and spectators (and probably sponsors) always in the background, loving me when I win and hating me when I lose. Why add more people feeling the same way, only more intensely? Which sport would I choose…archery perhaps. I am not much of a fan of any sport, in fact I think I’m too geeky to follow sports. I think scrabble and boggle should be sports so I can pick those instead. Just kidding…only not really. 10/6/05

WOULD YOU ACCEPT $1,000,000 TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY AND NEVER SET FOOT IN IT AGAIN?

Hmmm, while that is a tempting offer, I have to wonder just how far that $1,000,000 will take me if I try to live the life I think I should have elsewhere. Also there is the matter of family and friends…am I going alone or do I get to bring a few people I really like? If my husband is still around at the time and I can’t bring him along, then I probably am not going…even if it means waking up in the middle of the night wondering what I could have done with that amount of money. If my husband is gone and there’s nothing holding me here, I probably will go. It’s more than just the money in my case. 10/6/05

Follow-up question: IF YOU WERE EXPELLED FROM THE COUNTRY AND HAD ONLY LIMITED FINANCIAL RESOURCES, WHERE WOULD YOU TRY TO REBUILD YOUR LIFE?

Well, that would be either the Philippines or some other place of a similar climate and financial status. I would go where the dollar will get me a lot more things that it would here. It would have to be a third world country with no major political or social issue raging at the moment. But just to keep myself surrounded with familiar things, I would probably just go back to the Philippines. 10/6/05

WHICH SEX DO YOU THINK HAS IT EASIER IN OUR CULTURE? HAVE YOU EVER WISHED YOU WERE OF THE OPPOSITE SEX?

I think men have it easier. In fact, studies show that men earn more money than women who have the same position and obligations at work. I think society is still pretty much dominated by males. There might be more and more avenues open to females and there might be more “equal treatment” than before but it still is largely a man’s world. If men and women were truly equal, how is it that if a man sleeps around he’s macho or hot but if a woman does it, she’s a slut? And no, I never wished to be a man. I never wished to be one to worry about how my “thing down there” measures up compared to others, or whether or not I’m good at using it. 10/6/05

YOU ARE GIVEN THE POWER TO KILL PEOPLE SIMPLY BY THINKING OF THEIR DEATHS AND TWICE REPEATING THE WORD “GOODBYE.” PEOPLE WOULD DIE A NATURAL DEATH AND NO ONE WOULD SUSPECT YOU. ARE THERE ANY SITUATIONS I WHICH YOU WOULD USE THIS POWER?

Heck, yes. If I had such power I would probably be using it quite regularly…not saying I’d use it often but there would be quite a few mysterious deaths around me, that’s for sure. While the whole idea of being in charge of whether someone lives or dies is quite overwhelming, I probably would take a short time getting used to it…and then spend the rest of the time actually enjoying it. It would be quite hard to try not to use it or else people might at least think that it’s such a coincidence that everyone I don’t like has died already. What situations would provoke me to use this power? Any situation where a loved one is being disrespected, or where I’ve gotten fed up of someone’s stupidity and/or ignorance, or when I’m having my monthly “visitor.” No one can predict my mood when it’s that time of month so I guess people will just have to be nice to me then. 10/6/05

Follow-up question: IF YOU CAN IMAGINE YOURSELF KILLING SOMEONE INDIRECTLY, COULD YOU STILL SEE DOING SO IF YOU HAD TO LOOK INTO THE PERSON’S EYES AND STAB THE PERSON TO DEATH? HAVE YOU EVER GENUINELY WANTED TO KILL SOMEONE, OR WISHED SOMEONE DEAD?

I probably can do it given enough provocation. There had been a few times in the past when I’d wished someone dead…and it’s always the same person. Of course I wouldn’t act on that, except maybe if that person ever becomes a threat to the safety or life of my loved one. I always told myself, if he ever crosses the line, I’m meeting him there. 10/6/05

IF YOU WERE ABLE TO LIVE TO THE AGE OF 90 AND RETAIN EITHER THE BODY OR THE MIND OF A 30-YEAR OLD FOR THE LAST 60 YEARS OF YOUR LIFE, WHICH WOULD YOU WANT?

No question about it, I’d go with the mind. I think I would rather remember what I did with the frail, raisin-like body than have it look young and not remember what I did with it the night before, LOL. Also, just to be a smartass, the question made no mention of the face…a 90-year old face won’t quite look good with a 30-year old body, although I’m sure after seeing the body, a lot of men wouldn’t care. If I retain the mind of a 30-year old then maybe I can keep on working, be part of a thinktank somewhere, still be useful at least in a managerial level. Plus, that would help the other old people around me, I can be the “go to” person if they have questions about things they might have forgotten…that is if they remember who the “go to” person is. 10/6/05

WHAT WOULD CONSTITUTE A “PERFECT” EVENING FOR YOU?

Winter solstice…minus the cold temperature, just the length of the night. No stepkids around…no kids anywhere for that matter…hubby and I alone in a luxury hotel room. A jacuzzi, all the movies we want, a loaded fridge, the beach right outside the door, a nice comfy king-size bed…all for free! 10/6/05

WOULD YOU RATHER BE EXTREMELY SUCCESSFUL PROFESSIONALLY AND HAVE A TOLERABLE YET UNEXCITING PRIVATE LIFE, OR HAVE AN EXTREMELY HAPPY PRIVATE LIFE AND ONLY A TOLERABLE AND UNINSPIRING PROFESSIONAL LIFE?

I think this would depend on what stage of life I’m in. I think until I’m middle-aged I would prefer an extremely successful professional life. And then when I’ve built up enough fortune, I would retire and then concentrate on having an extremely happy private life and an uninspiring professional life (if any). As much as I would like to choose an extremely happy private life and only a tolerable and uninspiring professional life early on, I don’t think that would help me later on in life. There would be really happy memories to look back to but probably much uncertainty at a point in my life when I shouldn’t be worrying about where I would be in a few months. 10/9/05

Follow-up question: SINCE SO MANY PLACE GREAT EMPHASIS ON A HAPPY PRIVATE LIFE, WHY DO PEOPLE OFTEN WIND UP PUTTING MORE ENERGY INTO THEIR PROFESSIONAL LIVES? IF YOU FEEL YOUR PRIVATE LIFE IS MORE IMPORTANT TO YOU, DO YOUR PRIORITIES SUPPORT THIS? ARE YOU SIMPLY UNWILLING TO ADMIT THAT WORK IS MORE IMPORTANT? DO YOU USE WORK AS A SUBSTITUTE? DO YOU HOPE PROFESSIONAL SUCCESS WILL SOMEHOW MAGICALLY LEAD TO PERSONAL HAPPINESS?

I think that as much as people want to think that their private lives are more important than their professional lives, they are also very much aware that the state of their private lives depend largely on their professional lives, i.e. everything costs. If they didn’t put in so much energy into their professional lives, their private lives would be quite a failure and not as happy because then they’d have to deal with financial problems at home. Yes, I do hope that professional success will somehow lead to personal happiness, not magically though. I think that if there is enough professional success to bring in more money than what’s needed at present, then more can be put away for later, when I want to dispose of my professional life entirely and concentrate on making myself happy. 10/9/05

WHOM DO YOU ADMIRE MOST? IN WHAT WAY DOES THAT PERSON INSPIRE YOU?

I think the person I admire the most is my maternal grandpa. It’s a pity he’s gone. It took a lot to get him angry, he never was very expressive but he let us know in other ways that he cared and that he wished for us to be everything we can be. He paid for all the summer workshops I attended, during which time I discovered that I am (or was) a pretty good painter and an okay musician. When I was a kid he and my grandma always took my sister and me to the bookstore between our birthdays and Christmas to pick out what we want. He instilled the love of books in us. He bought books he thought we’d find interesting. There never was a day that he wasn’t reading something. He loved a good laugh. He loved learning. He retained so much in his mind, he would have made a really great trivia show contestant. We always called him up when we had homework we needed answers to. He was just an all-around knowledgeable guy. He also liked telling stories of things he went through; he remembered quite a bit of his childhood too. I kept going back to that bookstore he took me to years back. I have a whole lot of books now. I don’t feel sorry that I spent quite a bit of money buying all of them. I think books will always come in handy. Most of them I buy to learn something new. I have a lot of craft materials too, and I’ve dabbled in a lot of crafts. I still try every once in a while to play the guitar or the piano. I like to think that my love for the arts, books and learning all came from him. 10/9/05

IF AT BIRTH YOU COULD SELECT THE PROFESSION YOUR CHILD WOULD EVENTUALLY PURSUE, WOULD YOU DO SO?

I probably would. I realize there is no way to tell exactly what the child is going to be good at when it grows up, but a good look at the parents’ skills. If both parents aren’t good in math, then they should be discouraged from deciding that their child should be a statistician or a physicist. I probably would choose for my child to be into the arts as that seems to run in the family. This could all look so bad, with people accusing parents left and right of making their kids live the lives they wish they had. Also I don’t think there are parents who want their kids to be trash collectors or factory workers. Maybe I’ll choose to make my kid a trash collector. With all the other parents not wanting their kids to be in such a profession, that’s got to pay a good salary in the future. Hmmm… 10/9/05

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO BECOME EXTREMELY UGLY PHYSICALLY IF IT MEANT YOU WOULD LIVE FOR 1,000 YEARS AT ANY PHYSICAL AGE YOU CHOSE?

Now this seems to be a no-brainer to me. Why would I want to be extremely ugly and live a thousand years? Why would I want to subject myself to humiliation and ridicule for that long? The population of the world keeps growing and there are fewer and fewer areas uninhabited or untouched by man. In a thousand years I would run out of places where there’s no one to make fun of me. So no, I would never think of living a thousand years being extremely ugly. 10/9/05

Follow-up question: HOW MUCH ARE YOU AFFECTED BY A PERSON’S PHYSICAL APPEARANCE? HOW WOULD IT CHANGE YOUR LIFE IF SOMETHING HAPPENED TO MAKE YOU MUCH LESS ATTRACTIVE THAN YOU ARE NOW? DO YOU FIND ANYTHING DISTURBING ABOUT IMMORTALITY? WHAT AGE SEEMS IDEAL TO YOU?

I personally am not that much affected by a person’s physical appearance, that is if we’re talking about other people. I am pretty happy with how I am now and if something happened to make me much less attractive than I am now, I probably would go through a long period of depression. I’d most likely stay indoors until such time that I’m positive that people won’t be bothered by my presence, make fun of me or ask me what on earth happened to me. I don’t really find immortality disturbing. I think it’s a very romantic and exciting concept (at least for the first century or so)…and then you get used to everyone dying around you and everything changing too. What age would be ideal to me? Let’s see…I probably would choose 30. I think it’s the perfect age where you’re expected to still be goofy but also quite responsible. It’s not too young, not too old. It just seems to be the age where everything is within reach. It goes uphill to 30…then it starts going downhill. At least that’s what I think. So I think it would be ideal to freeze my age at 30. 10/9/05

IF YOU COULD WAKE UP TOMORROW HAVING GAINED ANY ONE ABILITY OR QUALITY, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

Well, this would depend on whether we’re talking about realistic abilities or not. If I were to wake up tomorrow having gained a realistic ability or quality, I would choose the ability to BS people really well that I can sell almost anything. As it is, I can’t see myself being in sales because I am too transparent and I’m just no good at BS’ing people convincingly enough to sell them anything. Now, if we’re talking about theoretical and unrealistic ability, I would love to have the ability to speed read a book and retain everything I learn. It would be so cool to be a genius about anything and everything. Kind of like John Travolta’s role in Phenomenon, except without the brain tumor. 10/10/05

YOU HAVE THE CHANCE TO MEET SOMEONE WITH WHOM YOU CAN HAVE THE MOST SATISFYING LOVE IMAGINABLE–THE STUFF OF DREAMS. SADLY, YOU KNOW THAT IN SIX MONTHS THE PERSON WILL DIE. KNOWING THE PAIN THAT WOULD FOLLOW, WOULD YOU STILL WANT TO MEET THE PERSON AND FALL IN LOVE? WHAT IF YOU KNEW YOUR LOVER WOULD NOT DIE, BUT INSTEAD WOULD BETRAY YOU?

I would still want to meet the person and fall in love even if I know that that person is going to die in 6 months. I think the fact that I know the person is dying will make it even more intense. It’s sad in a way but I guess in a situation like that, you just take it one day at a time and make the most of the days. If the person were going to betray me and I knew about it, no, I wouldn’t subject myself to that. At least if the person were dying, there would be no one to blame for it. Betrayal, knowing that that person is out there somewhere, being happy with someone else, at the expense of my happiness…that would be quite intolerable. 10/10/05

Follow-up question: IN LOVE, IS INTENSITY OR PERMANENCE MORE IMPORTANT TO YOU? HOW MUCH DO YOU EXPECT FROM SOMEONE WHO LOVES YOU? WHAT WOULD MAKE YOU FEEL BETRAYED BY YOUR MATE–INDIFFERENCE? DISHONESTY? INFIDELITY?

I personally think that at the start, intensity is quite important but as the relationship develops, permanence is definitely what’s needed. I expect a lot from someone who loves me. I tend to be more critical of the people I like or love. I tend to think that they should be more caring and considerate than other people around me. And so therefore it hurts me a lot more when they disappoint me. I would feel betrayed if my mate were dishonest with or unfaithful to me. I don’t trust a whole lot of people so any breach of trust will make me feel betrayed. 10/10/05

IF YOU KNEW OF A WAY TO USE YOUR ESTATE, FOLLOWING YOUR DEATH, TO GREATLY BENEFIT HUMANITY, WOULD YOU DO IT AND LEAVE ONLY A MINIMAL AMOUNT TO YOUR FAMILY?

I don’t think so…unless I’m unhappy with my family. Otherwise, I’d be willing to go half and half, no more, no less. It might be a great loss to humanity as a whole but selfish as this sounds, I think someone else will come along who will be willing to do that. 10/10/05

DO YOU PREFER BEING AROUND MEN OR WOMEN? DO YOUR FRIENDS TEND TO BE MEN OR WOMEN?

I don’t prefer being around any specific gender. I like having an equal amount of men and women around me; it makes for a good mix of people. My friends don’t tend to be one gender or the other. I have friends of both sexes, and I’ve been really close to some guys before and I have been close to girls too. I don’t pick friends according to gender. I basically am friends with the more open-minded people. I have a lot of criteria for friendship but gender is definitely not one of them. 10/10/05

IF YOU COULD USE A VOODOO DOLL TO HURT ANYONE YOU CHOSE, WOULD YOU?

Most definitely, yes…but only if that person can’t get back to me the same way. I already have one person in mind. I’m thinking even if he could get back at me the same way, he probably would take ages to figure out what is going on with him anyway. So I probably would still do it to him even with the risk of being hurt the same way. 10/10/05

WHILE ON A TRIP TO ANOTHER CITY, YOUR SPOUSE (OR LOVER) MEETS AND SPENDS A NIGHT WITH AN EXCITING STRANGER. GIVEN THAT THEY WILL NEVER MEET AGAIN, AND THAT YOU WILL NOT OTHERWISE LEARN OF THE INCIDENT, WOULD YOU WANT YOUR PARTNER TO TELL YOU ABOUT IT? IF ROLES WERE REVERSED, WOULD YOU REVEAL WHAT YOU HAD DONE?

Yes, I think I would want my partner to tell me about it. Of course the relationship will probably start going down the drain from then on but the main thing would be that he was honest about it and that he didn’t dare keep it from me. If it were me that did that…it would be so tempting not to tell my partner about it. And it’s just so easy not to say anything since he won’t find out otherwise but it would probably bother me down the line how I wasn’t straightforward about it. So I probably would tell him, after bracing myself for possible consequences. I think anyone who does anything like that has to come clean and face the consequences of their actions. 10/10/05

ARE THERE PEOPLE YOU ENVY ENOUGH TO WANT TO TRADE LIVES WITH THEM? WHO ARE THEY?

No. In my mind, there might be people I envy for certain aspects of their lives. But I also keep in mind that they would have problems of their own too. There are no problem-free lives. It’s just a case of having a different set of problems. I might envy someone for being filthy rich. But I wouldn’t want to trade lives with people like that. Sure, here I am wishing I could afford to buy this and that…or thinking about how I will be able to make payments on bills. But there they are, wondering if any of their cronies are cheating them out of a little bit of their fortune here and there, or whether this friend is a real friend or just there because they have money, or whether their investments will bring in more money the next day or crash. It’s just a matter of knowing that for every privilege there is, certain problems tend to rise with it. 10/10/05

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2006 Posts

August 16, 2006 by annadulcekelly.

 05/06/06
CATCHING UP (Blair, Rosie, etc.)

My bad, I haven’t been updating this site for the longest time.  Lack of time and interest.  There’s knitting, there’s the new laptop, and a host of other things.

On February 15th, we lost Blair. She had mellowed down quite a bit and we were getting along quite well.  She has been very attentive to what I want her to do and I thought we were bonding really well.  I bought her this Christmas paw stocking, embroidered with her name…of course with treats inside.  I was just lavishing so much on her because we WERE so much closer.  She never gave any problem as far as getting out to do her business.  She asked to be let out, did it, asked or sometimes demanded to be let in.   I thought we were going to have a great time training her to be just perfect, because she seemed to be on the way to it. She stayed on the bed a lot but we didn’t think much of it because we thought she just loved the bed and she was spoiled. She sometimes wet beds and we didn’t think much about it.  We thought it was just a phase. Then she had this wound on her nose which we thought happened after she stuck her wet nose on icy metal outside. The wound stayed fresh because of where it was, and then it looked like it was getting worse. She was taken to the vet to have it checked out, and she was given antibiotics for it. There was a significant difference between normal concentration of uric acid and her test results. Later on it appeared that that was the problem. She was given steroids.  That didn’t help much.  The sore spread to her mouth and she refused to eat or drink.  She lost 10 pounds in the span of a month, apparently.  Her breath started smelling like pee way before we started worrying.  And with the sores it smelled even worse. The vet said he didn’t think there was anything we could do, unless we want to spend money to bring her to the U of M and have her checked out. It was too much to spend on something that the vet thought was hopeless. So she had to be put to sleep…which we thought was better for her than to have her suffer through it and probably starve to death.

It was very uncharacteristic of me to be so affected by it but, as I said earlier, we’d been bonding.  She had the Christmas stocking which I expected to use every year to put her treats in.  I got her a doggie fleece blanket too.  Also I have sort of accepted that I most probably will not have kids of my own, so I focused on Blair instead.  So the thought of her being put to sleep was especially painful to me.  I told Scott that I wasn’t going to be there when he brings her to the vet. I can’t stand the thought of being there when that happens.  I would have become really hysterical and that wouldn’t have been any help to anyone. There was a lot of crying on and off the day before, on the day itself and then days after that. There might be a few times now that I still think about her and how she was, and that still gets me teary-eyed. It might also have something to do with Rosie being her exact opposite, therefore emphasizing what I don’t see anymore with Blair not being around.

Who’s Rosie?

Way back, I got Scott to agree that I will pick the next pet.  I didn’t expect for that to come so quickly.  Scott said on the day that Blair was put down that maybe we should just see who’s at the shelter.  We don’t have to pick a dog then, he just wanted me to look at my choices. Then later he said we’ll do it the next day. At the time it was upsetting but it did work for us. The next day we went to the shelter and I laid out my criteria.  I wanted a female, adult, not much shedding, mellow, potty-trained and about 30 pounds. There wasn’t anything there that met all the criteria. There was a 6-month old puppy but it was too young and too hyperactive for me. We had passed a yellow lab on the way to the said puppy but she was too big so we didn’t give her much thought. But the volunteer said the magic word…mellow.  And so we had to take a second look. She was the wrong size but that was about it.

He said that a buddy of his found her wandering around his ice house on one of the lakes.  She had no collar, later found to not have a chip either, and she had some icicles hanging down her nose. So the friend brought the dog to the volunteer who kept her over the weekend at his house.  There he found that she’s good around kids and cats and that she’s toilet-trained.  Apparently they called her Betty initially at the shelter but she didn’t answer to that.  She seemed to respond to Rosie though.  She was let out of the kennel and she immediately pranced towards the door, like saying “come on, let’s go” to us. She came back, sat there while getting petted, didn’t bark once, and then proceeded to give me a big wet kiss. I think that’s when she got me hooked, and I decided that I’ve found our dog.

I said earlier that it worked out for us that we didn’t go the day Blair was put to sleep. The day we got there was the day that Rosie was moved from quarantine/observation to adoption.  If we had been there the day before, she wouldn’t have been up for adoption yet.  She needed to be spayed and checked out so the volunteers at the shelter set her up for the next morning at our vet’s clinic. And we were to pick her up there.  So we waited another day. We brought her home later that day and she was her usual quiet self, but also she was quite drowsy from the painkillers.  I didn’t hear her bark until maybe a week later. She doesn’t bark at people or jump on them.  She won’t chase the cat, which puzzled the cat immensely that he found it scary.  the first few days all he did was watch her very closely, arch her back and hiss. Everyone loved her.  It seemed ridiculous to think back to when Scott said that if I choose a dog that the kids don’t like, he’ll get one for them too.  She hit it off just fine with the kids.

At first she was throwing up every now and then. I was thinking it might have something to do with erratic feeding. With 5 people in the house, I guess some people assumed that other people were going to feed Rosie and so sometimes she went without food the whole day. And likewise there might have been days when she was overfed.  I thought that might have something to do with her throwing up. So I told Scott that I was going to take over feeding her so that there will be a fixed feeding schedule.  Of course there’s no assurance that other people are not feeding her leftovers, which Scott had told them not to do.  But at least with the dog food, it was a regular thing. She hasn’t thrown up since. We do have some accidents in the house because she’s so quiet and she doesn’t really let us know when she needs to go out.  She does get walked once or twice a day and it takes 20 minutes or so for her to do her business.  It could also be that she’s letting us know and we just don’t understand that that’s her way of telling us.

She has gotten so attached to our bed that anytime she’s in the house, she’s most likely on our bed. Unlike Blair who was happy enough laying by our feet, Rosie likes cuddling. So a lot of times she is in the middle of the bed, getting some loving from both sides. She loves attention and she loves her “parents” a lot. I don’t know if it’s because we’re the first people she saw here or what, but she’s closer to us than to the kids.  With Blair, she was equally close to everyone.  Rosie seems to prefer our company over the kids’. I think that is a good thing though. Just a couple of days ago, I caught her going downstairs with a hotdog on a bun in her mouth.  The kids don’t discipline her like they need to.  They don’t watch her to make sure she doesn’t get into anything she’s not supposed to have.  She used to not care even if I ate in bed; she didn’t want to smell my food or have some of it.  I assume that someone has introduced the taste of human food to her here, or else she wouldn’t have gone for that hotdog.  She wasn’t hungry, I knew that because she’d just eaten about an hour before that.

I don’t think anyone here is disciplining her as much as she needs to be.  I let her lay on me in bed, which is not a good thing, because it’s an act of possession.  Scott lets her off the leash sometimes, and she just bolts. I dare not do that and I don’t see me taking her off the leash for another 3 years or so, or until I know I can trust her not to get distracted and run after something.  Right now birds and squirrels make her want to chase them.  I suspect that’s how she got lost in the first place. She got out of the house or was let out, and she spotted a squirrel then chased it.  Then she got lost.  I try to train her not to focus on birds and squirrels when she sees them.  She would sit on command but she’s not very good at staying where she is. On average I’d say she would stay put for 5 seconds, no more.  There’s still quite a bit of training to do and she has to be rid of the habit of yanking when she sees the creatures she wants to chase.  I haven’t fallen from her yanking but she’d pulled me a couple of steps a couple of times.  I can almost tell when she’s about to yank, and I yank at her leash just a bit to snap her out of it.

Overall she’s a big sweetie (15 pounds heavier than Blair at her healthiest) and everyone loves her. I just wish people would think more of her welfare than their own motives.  The oldest brat, for some reason, insists on leaving the door to the garage and the back door of the garage open at the same time when he’s grilling out back. It’s wrong on two counts.  First off, the cat has wandered into the garage twice before, and wasn’t found for a couple of days each time.  Second, the dog was the wandering type and, unlike the cat, she’s not afraid to go outside. She actually got lost for a while. One day when I was doing payroll over at the in-laws’ house, I called home to tell Scott to feed Rosie because I wasn’t going to be home in time for her afternoon meal.  He found out she was missing and the two doors mentioned above were both open.  Well, duh!  She wandered out and someone found her a couple of miles away.  Good thing she had our number on her tag and he called to let us know he found her. He had absolutely no trouble getting her to come to him so he could put a leash on her. Another time I caught her just as she got in the garage and was on her way out to the back. She knew to go to the back door, and I concluded that’s how she got out the first time.  Still the oldest brat wouldn’t do anything differently.  The stupid stubbornness just boggles the mind.

And speaking of the oldest brat, he’s supposed to graduate this year.  Scott has said that he has to move out on graduation day.  He refuses to cooperate and live by the rules, he is a bad influence on his brother, and he just refuses in general to use his brain. He can’t be grateful that at 19 he still lives at home rent-free.  He can’t appreciate that his grandpa is the only reason that he’s still working with us is to make his grandpa happy.  He takes up half the space in the fridge with food he claims to share with everyone, and yet if someone finishes off his milk, he’s upset.  He’d use eggs that Scott bought but if Scott used any of his, he rants.  He would not take money from Scott so he can buy groceries on his way home…groceries that he uses up very quickly himself.  It’s not like he’s being asked to pay for them.  All he had to do was pick them up.  Apparently that’s too much to do.

Another thing that’s apparently hard to do is leaving his brother alone. If he’s not bullying him, he’s teaching him a whole bunch of crap, of course with every other word being a foul word, or he’s distracting the kid from schoolwork that needs finishing just by being there.  He can’t see how he’s not being a good example or influence.  He refuses to open his mind to the idea that he might need to let up or change how he deals with the kid.  No kid needs to get used to the language he uses.  It’s not something anyone wants to hear from a 12-year old, so why constantly expose him to it? But that’s what he gets from listening to that rap crap that teaches nothing good. That’s what he wants to emulate, never mind that he didn’t grow up in a ghetto or had a hard life.  In fact, even if he thinks he’s tough, there is that undeniable fact that he grew up in a small town that’s mostly white, and he’s a suburban kid through and through.  If New York scared him, I don’t know where he got the idea that he’s tough. I personally think he’s afraid of more things than I am. I personally think I am a lot more streetsmart than he ever would be.

Of course there is the usual disrespect that’s always been there.  There’s no reason for him to follow rules, according to him.  Apparently he can’t wait to get out of here and be on his own.  I sure hope so. No one would like that better than me. The sooner he’s out the better.  No one is made happy by his presence in this house. If there’s anyone out there that thinks he’s a delight to be around, I suggest they live with him for a couple of years, then tell me if they still think the same way.  If they do, more power to them. If not, they can just shut up. I wouldn’t go so far as to say no one is going to miss him even if he moved out of state but I think it will be a great relief to Scott and me if he stayed out of our house. He doesn’t do anyone any good, he wouldn’t exert any effort to make other people happy or even just make their lives easier. As far as I’m concerned, he needs to learn just how tough it is dealing with him.  I think he should be on his own. I am curious to find out how he intends to pay the rent, pay the bills and and eat the way he does now. I want to see how he can afford to eat 2 pounds of meat a day, 2 dozen eggs a week, drink a gallon of milk a day…all on minimum wage, after taxes and bill payment.

Maybe then he’ll have an appreciation of his dad buying things for everyone…or maybe not.  He probably will be too damn stubborn to see the lesson behind everything. That would be just like him. I pity whoever thinks he’s good enough to live with. I pity the girl who decides he’s the one for her…either she isn’t smart or she has very low self-esteem. She’s going to be someone easy to manipulate and prone to take abuse without so much as a groan. He’s never going to have a long-term and stable relationship for as long as he’s the same as he is now. He thinks he’s all that. All he needs to change that view is to sit back and think about what talents he has and what he actually has to offer.

It’s really going to be curious how this all works out.  I don’t think that he’ll make it on his own too long. He will run out of money because of how much he spends on food.  He will start eating at his grandparents’ and he just might move in with them after the funds have run dry. I think he might drop by here too to eat.  Once a moocher, always a moocher. Why stop now?  Especially with grandparents and a father who can’t turn him down no matter how badly he treats them. I’m just glad he’s not my kid…although I doubt that the bad behavior would go so far if he were mine.

Well, that’s all the ranting that’s left in me for now.  We’ll see how it goes this year.  I don’t promise to add a lot more unless one of the brats acts up enough to rile me…I almost expect that to happen.

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2005 Posts

August 16, 2006 by annadulcekelly.

 09/28/05
MISS PERFECT FINALLY MAKES ME HAPPY!

I bet that sounds really bogus.  But yes, she finally did something to make me happy, except I don’t think she did it to make me happy. I think it might have been meant to upset me, who knows for sure.  All I know is, finally she said something I liked. All this time…all the waiting…she finally told her dad (referring to me, of course), “I don’t talk to her.”

Well, golly gee whiz, you don’t think I don’t know that yet? LOL, that’s stating the obvious. What was funny was that that actually upset her dad just a wee bit, enough to go “okay, whatever, bye” on the phone. If you want specifics on how this came about, let’s just say there was something she had to give him and he wasn’t home.  And she was leaving soon, and the only person there was me.  So she didn’t say anything to me, she just waited to call her dad on our cell phone and tell him about the thing she didn’t leave home for him.  So he asked her why she didn’t just give it to me or ask me where he was. And that was her answer…”I don’t talk to her.” Well, good for you, dear.  At least now it’s all in the open.  Finally she’s learning not to be such a hypocrite.  There must be at least one good seed among her friends now, I figure.

So anyway, I tell mom (hubby’s mom) about it and her jaw just dropped. And I told her, you know what, I’ve been past caring what people think for the longest time. This doesn’t bother me.  If anything, it’s a relief. I mean, come on, I’m not blind, I can see she doesn’t like me, and I don’t really care. I don’t live to please people, most people who know me know that. It’s just funny to me that she had to announce it. Yeah, show us once more what a brat you are…not that it’s anything new.

Mom and I agree on most things…we agree that we shouldn’t let things like this bother us one bit.  We are not here to make everyone like us. We just don’t waste time on people we don’t like.  That’s basically how it got so slow on this page.  I stopped caring, I stopped being bothered so much and I just didn’t feel like ranting so much anymore, even if there’d been so much bullcrap between now and the last time I wrote.

Shit happens.  So therefore stepkids happen. That’s just the way life goes. I KNOW they don’t talk to me.  Frankly, with what I’ve heard, from their conversations with friends, and even their dad, I’d rather they didn’t talk to me or I’ll go dumb. I’m glad they don’t talk to me, I hope they keep it up…and I hope that “I don’t talk to her” is a promise I can count on.  She probably won’t like it but it’s the best thing she can do for me. In fact, I would really like it if they all just disappeared for a while on my birthday. I don’t care to receive anything from them…just like they can’t expect to receive anything from me.

At least she’s learning something. Hypocrisy is tiring…if she wants less stress in her life, that’s one thing she can take out. I don’t talk to her, she doesn’t talk to me. Actually, that’s wrong grammar…I don’t talk WITH her.  You talk WITH someone and speak TO someone. So I don’t talk with her and according to her “she doesn’t talk TO me” and so therefore life is just perfect right now.  I just hope it continues this way.  Who needs all that shallow teen crap anyway?

One thing…I hope she’s not talking with me because she found this page, LMAO.  Now that would be a blast.  At least if she sees all this, she’ll know all the reasons I don’t communicate with her. What’s her excuse? Is it that dad is stricter now and they can’t just throw so much crap at him anymore?  Hmmm, makes me wonder.  Well, whatever it is, I wish I know what it was so I can keep doing it.
 
 
 3/29/2005
RED LIVING ROOM, GREEN KITCHEN, YELLOW BATHROOM

Yes, Miss Perfect strikes again. Yesterday she declared that she was repainting her room…which she repainted last spring break…a year ago. And then she went one step further and declared she was going to paint the whole house inside.  She wanted red living room walls, green kitchen walls, and yellow upstairs bathroom walls.  My hubby had to put his foot down, of course, and I just sat there in absolute horror at the headaches such colors would bring about.  I do love color, and I do wish for color everytime I look out the window in winter, but there is such a thing as too much and too loud.

So hubby kept telling Miss Perfect, she can repaint her room all she wants, that’s her space…but she can’t just say outright she’s going to paint the whole house. That is not something she has a say over.  Well, she started with the living room and the kitchen only.  Red living room walls and green kitchen walls…from where I sit I can almost see them clashing as there is not a doorway in between the kitchen and the living room…so the colors are going to have to meet somewhere on some wall.  And I think that would be terrible. Then she wanted to do the bathroom instead since she can’t do the living room and the kitchen.  Hubby said, fine, but white or beige only.  She said yellow.  I was vehemently shaking my head to tell hubby that that bathroom better not be yellow.  She said it’s a girls’ bathroom.  How she got to that conclusion, I don’t know.  There are as many males as there are females in this house and they use the bathroom too; one of the females, yours truly, would hate a yellow bathroom. And so hubby told her, you say it’s a girls’ bathroom, and there is another girl in the house; how about you ask her if she wants a yellow bathroom. Well, of course she wasn’t going to ask ME. So she instead stormed off saying our house is too boring…white walls and clutter…that she can’t wait to get her own house because she can’t stand how boring this house is anymore.

You know what, I can’t wait for her to get her own house either. If she thinks that her house is not going to be cluttered, she can think again…or simply look at her bedroom floor on any given day. Oh, wait…can’t see the floor, too much clutter.  She thinks she can do better, and I highly doubt it.  I can see her house now…all colors of the rainbow…can’t see the color of the carpets…sink very full…oh, and probably some curling iron still hot and placed on top of something plastic in the bathroom. I can see the house burning down too…some hair implement in the bathroom or something left on the stove. Yeah, I can’t wait for her to get her own house, that’s for sure.

As for the “boring” white walls…they’re not really white, they’re off-white or beige.  I’m sure the place can look more exciting, like what they do on those redecorating TV shows.  Like Miss Perfect said, red living room, green kitchen, yellow bathroom. While that might look good, that’s just not very flexible. In my opinion, off-white walls are very versatile, in that you don’t have to worry about your furniture clashing with the walls. Or the carpet not matching the walls. In fact it’s the safest color to use, I think. I do agree the place can use some sprucing up, but the most I would be willing to consider is using wallpaper with a bit of texture…still off-white or beige.  Those rooms that have been redone on TV, they all look good…they’re just not for me.

Another thing that Miss Perfect didn’t quite consider with the gaudy colors she wants…getting furniture, carpet and everything to match. For example, if we let her paint the living room red…the carpet is simply not going to go well with it.  Is she going to pay for new carpets?  The furniture isn’t going to match the walls either…is she paying for new furniture? The green kitchen idea…the color wood the counters and cabinets are just won’t look good on green walls. Is she paying to have those replaced as well?  Repainting them is out of the question, I know that.  There isn’t really much of a problem with things matching with yellow walls in the bathroom, but I really don’t like yellow walls.  All these gaudy repainting plans will require furniture replacement and recarpeting…I don’t think she’s going to be paying for those. And I sure as hell am not going to let hubby pay for that either.  We have other more important things to spend the money on.  The windows need replacing, the outside needs repainting, and we need a new mattress. Those things have been on the list of things to do for a while, and they got held back why?  Because Miss Perfect had to have braces put on her teeth…I honestly didn’t think it was all that urgent or all that necessary.  But hubby gave her that.  Oh, did I say she wanted a new entertainment center to go with her newly painted walls?  Hubby put his foot down on that too.  She also wanted a new computer desk.  Now, those 2 things cost hubby about $200…and they’re not old at all. I’d say maybe a year and a half old…so they’re not falling apart yet or anything like that.  It’s not like hubby bought them without asking her if she wanted them. She picked them out herself.

What boggles me the most about this whole thing is this…like I said, she just repainted her room a year ago, and she’s repainting again now.  So…WHY DOES SHE THINK SHE KNOWS WHAT COLORS ARE NOT BORING WHEN OBVIOUSLY SHE’S ALREADY BORED WITH THE COLOR CHOICE SHE MADE FOR HER BEDROOM LAST YEAR?  Well, gee, I guess she’s not really that good with choosing non-boring colors, now is she? Her room’s getting repainted again…that’s twice in the 2 years I’ve been here…how much are you willing to bet she’ll get bored of the red living room, green kitchen and yellow bathroom after a year? And all that talk about her dad being cluttered…well, gee, she’s not Miss Neat either. Everytime I have to go get the dishes she just doesn’t have time to put in the sink, it’s like going into a jungle or having an Easter egg hunt.  I almost expect a snake or a rabbit to jump out and bite me.  And she complains about the clutter some other people make.  Yup, she sure is Perfect.

It’s just so amazing that she would even think that she can dictate what color the other rooms of the house should be. There are 2 homeowners here and she’s not one of them. Common sense should tell anyone that if they don’t own the house, they don’t get to dictate such things…not even if they’re willing to pay for it.  Common sense should’ve told her that she should be thankful that her dad is spending money on her repainting her room yet again…and she will continue to have control over what color that room is until she moves out, at which time I fully intend to use it as my craft room or something.  Of course the walls are going to have to be repainted or papered over with a tamer color and/or design. And I’m probably going to get rid of the food-stained carpet of hers too.

I agree about the clutter part.  There is too much of it and hubby is just loathe to get rid of some of the things.  I do think that we could use the space they take up.  I don’t think though that anyone whose room is just about as cluttered has any right to rant about the mess that other people leave elsewhere.  That’s like a kettle calling the pot black…she can’t keep her stuff straight, she can’t have the right to complain about other people being messy too.  Common sense yet again…missing, obviously, in this situation.

I would like to have reason to like her…she’s just making it really impossible.  I like people who think before speaking or doing something, I like people with common sense. I don’t like pushy, gotta-be-cool, “A group” kind of people. I like people who don’t mind scrubbing the paint off the Tupperware container they used, especially when it didn’t take me much time or effort to do that. I like people who don’t try to carpet the laundry room floor with their clothes in an attempt to claim that their bedroom is neater now. I like people who are considerate enough not to leave stuff in the washer and/or dryer so other people can’t do their laundry when they need to.  I like people who don’t think that everyone else’s lives should revolve around them and that other people should work their schedules around their own. Basically I don’t like selfish, self-important, domineering people who keep talking nonsense.

And the final verdict is:  No red walls for the living room, no green walls for the kitchen, no yellow walls for the bathroom, not in my house, not without my permission or cooperation. It is MY house after all, she just happens to live here.  She wants to repaint someone’s house, she can do that to her mom’s place.
 
 
 2/6/2005
SHOPPING TRICKS FOR PARENTS OF TEENAGERS

In a letter to Time Magazine, a reader named Hart Sprager from Oregon summarized in a few words what I think of American children as a whole:  “People will never be happy so long as their greed exceeds their needs and they don’t comprehend the meaning of the word enough.”  That just about tells you what I think about teenagers and shopping for clothes every damn season. I think it’s wasteful, I think it’s unnecessary, and too many parents just give in or fall victim to tricks that end up with them buying the stuff anyway.

Just today we went to mall so Miss Perfect can pick out another outfit for a dance.  She said she needed a semi-formal outfit and her dad agreed to pay for it. Of course she wanted to go to the Mall of America but her dad didn’t allow that; so we went to a mall that was much smaller but nearer to home. Now, just recently, Miss Perfect told her dad she wanted to go shopping and that he doesn’t have to spend a lot on it. I’m guessing that by “not a lot” she meant around $300 as opposed to about $400 to $600 which I am guessing she’d consider a good shopping spree. He said no…and he asked when she was going to help around the depot again, which was how she used to get her money.  Lately none of the younger kids have been helping out and all they’ve been doing is asking for stuff from him.

I understand where he’s coming from. They’re not helping out, they’re not putting money in the bank, they’re not doing anything to give him any reason to splurge on a shopping spree.  Needless to say she didn’t like it. She said she won’t ask her mom to shell out some money for it because she’s broke.  Well, you know what, we’re not swimming in money either. Her mom doesn’t help out enough with the child support.  I highly doubt that the $80 per child per month pays for the utilities and the food that they consume. And of course let’s not forget this is the same mother who would not pay for hot lunches in school in the winter…or half of the piano lessons.

So…today we went to the mall with the intention of letting Miss Perfect pick out an outfit for the dance.  Hubby, younger stepson and I wandered around while Miss Perfect and a friend went shopping. After about an hour or so, hubby called up his darling daughter on her cell phone to ask how she was coming along.  Guess what, she had picked out a few tops, a skirt, a wallet, a pair of sandals and a small dress…the small dress was what she came for.  She said she only wanted “a few items more” and asked if he could pay for it. Hubby, forgetting the champagne taste that his daughter has, said yes.  When the cashier was ringing everything up, he was shocked to see that it all came out to just over $200. So…parents, always check the prices on stuff first before going to pay for them. If need be make a scene and tell your kid quite loudly that you’re not going to pay for all those things because that’s not what you came to the mall to get.

Now, the dress she picked out, as I expected, fell short of the general concept of semi-formal.  She never does seem to understand the difference between casual and semi-formal…or semi-formal and formal. And for someone who apparently keeps up with the times as far as fashion is concerned, that’s quite a surprise.  How can she not know, with all those fufu magazines she reads?  What the hell is she learning from them?  How to spend more of her dad’s money on stuff she will only wear once and then throw on the floor to walk on?

I don’t quite see the need to get a $15 wallet, a $50 dress (which is not worth it judging from the amount of fabric used), and other stuff that just cost too much per piece.  I don’t quite see the need to go to certain stores and pay top price for baby tees the likes of which can be bought elsewhere a lot cheaper.  I don’t quite see why anyone should pay top dollar to advertise the store. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?  If they’re getting advertising, they should be the ones paying the customers to display their brand on their clothes.

Anyway, so, like I said, before saying “yes” to paying for stuff, especially if it’s not the stuff that you went to the store to get, check the prices.  Chances are the fewer items there are, the more expensive each item is. Your teenager knows just which buttons to push, and how far they can go without getting into serious trouble.  Also remember how ungrateful they can be right after you get them the stuff they like. It’s not like anything changes.  They still refuse to clean their rooms, do their laundry or do anything that can be considered a favor for you, never mind what you just did for them.

My second tip would be…if it’s just one item that the kid is supposed to get, hang around. Make sure it’s the right type of item, make sure that’s the only item that’s getting picked up.  There’s nothing like discovering later on, after you’ve waited a few hours, that what they picked out isn’t really appropriate or tasteful.  Stick around. You’re paying, you should have your say in it.  If they don’t like it, let them pay for it. If they can’t pay for it, bummer.  Bottomline is, you’re holding the money, you’re in control. You don’t have to give in if you don’t feel like it. Sure, things are going to be rough at home, but then again, they almost always are with teenagers around.

My third tip is…stay in town.  This is prone to make your teenager whine a lot more but you know what, you don’t have to drive so far to spend so much money on stuff  you think cost more than they’re worth. So why not save some gas and stay in town?  If there are no shops in town that sells the type of clothing/item that your child wants, your child can learn to just choose with what’s there.  Chances are, he/she will find something that will tide him/her over anyway, and it’s still not going to be exactly appropriate for the occasion, I assure you.

Letting a teenager pick out their clothes without paying for those things themselves is BOGUS. They want to choose what they wear, they want to choose where to buy them, they can damn well pay for it each time.  My hubby remembers a time last year that Miss Perfect made a statement about not ever going shopping at the mall again and staying in town because she can get more for her money that way. Hmmm, that sure lasted a long time, huh? That was before summer and by fall she was back at the mall, wasting her birthday money on a few choice items that I bet she’s not using anymore. And by Halloween, she didn’t have any money left for a costume.

Let your kids work for their money, let them spend their own money shopping. The earlier they learn that things are not cheap and they have to work long and hard to get those things they really like, the sooner they’ll realize that they can make do with cheaper stuff that’s not as hip but not too bad either. In fact I am proud to say that I shop at secondhand stores, and I hunt for the clothes that don’t show much wear. I buy and wear the same brand clothes that Miss Perfect wears, but of course I don’t pay as much for them.  In fact just a month ago, I came out of such a store with about 17 items and it didn’t cost me $50 to get them all. I don’t settle for mediocre either, I choose what I wear, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay so much for each of them.

But then again, I grew up in a different time, a different place and a different financial situation.  My parents were paying for private schooling and there was no money for allowance. I got 2 new sets of clothes a year on the average and my mom was always hunting for bargains.  Well, I don’t think that we’re in such a different financial situation. It’s just that these kids are going to public school and in this country, it’s free. If they were going to private school as I did, their dad wouldn’t even consider buying them stuff they WANT and not need.

What’s so annoying is that she’s never happy with what she’s got.  Every few months, she gets tired of the stuff that she spent so much money on.  What the hell is that?  It’s a wasteful life is what it is. She doesn’t outgrow every item she bought the season before.  She doesn’t use them all more than once.  They just end up on her bedroom floor or the laundry room floor or some friend’s house. If she’s going to be so careless with these things, why the hell spend so much on them?  I pay $10 tops for most of my stuff but you won’t see them lying around like that.  I wouldn’t walk on them even if I got them for a quarter at a garage sale.  How many mini-skirts does one person need anyway? I’ve seen her do a whole load of jeans…she has more than a dozen pairs.  Who on earth needs a dozen pairs of jeans?  They all look about the same to me, too.  Who needs a dozen pairs of jeans that look the same?

My husband laments how she can’t get into the habit of doing her laundry regularly since she seems to make a habit of making a carpet of dirty clothes in the laundry room.  I told him, the more clothes she has, the less motivation there is to do laundry. The more clothes she has, the more she has to wear before she’s forced to do the laundry.  You would think that someone with so many clothes won’t ever run out of things to wear.  But no, she does run out. Again, this is because she doesn’t do her laundry regularly.  And that is because she just keeps on getting more clothes. It’s a vicious cycle, and no parent should have to feed it.

So my thinking is, if the shopping habit can’t be curbed…threaten to give away all the dirty clothes that are laying around for more than 3 days. Or better yet, do give some away.  Chances are, they won’t even notice because they have way too much of everything that they just can’t keep track of their things anymore.

I pity the parents of teenagers, I really do.  I pity the parents of teenage girls more. I pity the teenagers who just can’t get satisfied. I still say they should be sent over to the Philippines to live in the slums for a couple of weeks.  Then maybe they will learn to be thankful for what they have and stop wanting more of the same every now and then. I pity the teenagers who get depressed because they can’t go shopping, they can’t spend as much as they want shopping, they can’t buy the number of items they want because they buy expensive stuff. Cluelessness seems to be rampant, and that’s just really pathetic.  I just hope they didn’t get it from parents.

Again, parents, listen up: look at the price tags before offering to pay for anything, be firm and just get what you set out to get (don’t let the kid get some other stuff that’s not needed), stay in town (save gas, save yourself a headache and probably a few bucks that make up the difference in the prices of clothes), give away some of the clothes you see laying around since your kid is probably not going to miss it anyway, don’t buy your kids more clothes than they will ever need in a 2-week period.  That way if they go without washing their clothes for close to 2 weeks they will be forced to do the laundry before going out again. That way you won’t see the stuff you paid good money for just laying around getting stepped on.

Just say NO. They teach that in school, and I’m sure your kids use that on you quite a bit. You can return the favor.  And until they’re really nice to you on a regular basis, don’t even think of mentioning shopping.  If you go shopping, it’s for an important occasion like their birthday.  Set a limit…$150 should be plenty, just tell them to look in the right places so they can get more for their money. They’ll tell you you’re mean.  You’re not mean.  They’re mean. They make you buy stuff you don’t like, stuff they’ll get tired of in a couple of months. They want you to pay so much so they can waste your money. They’re mean, not you. Keep that in mind and you’ll keep your kids under control where shopping is concerned. It is not your obligation to take your kids shopping.  Your obligation is to provide your kids with food, shelter and clothing. But only the necessary ones. They don’t have to be the ones choosing what food, what kind of house or what clothes.  You could be feeding them broccoli all day everyday and you’ll still be fulfilling your obligation to give them food. Remember, the bare necessities, that’s all you’re obliged to provide.  Let them work for the rest of what they want.  Or let them learn to live without…that’s better anyway in the long run.
 
 
 2/6/2005
MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO

Yeah, yeah, I know what you parents are thinking.  I’m not a parent myself, why do I dare lecture you? Simple.  You’re way too close to the situation and it’s hard for you to see the things that are right in front of your nose.  I, on the other hand, have this unique (not really) advantage of not having that unconditional love and blind faith that you seem to have for your children.  I see things from an unbiased perspective.  And also sometimes I’m speaking as someone’s grownup child; I didn’t just spring from the earth like a mushroom, after all.

The one thing that really boggles me is how some parents can try to tell their kids to do one thing and then…AND THEN…they themselves do the opposite or tell their kids a story of when they didn’t do that themselves.  “Do as I say, not as I do” doesn’t really work with kids. I know that for a fact and from experience.  I don’t know where parents get the idea that it does. Whatever you tell your kids, if they don’t see the same thing from you, they’re not going to learn to do it, or want to do it.

I’m not saying all parents have to be model citizens.  That’s like expecting a cow to lay duck eggs. But they should try to be, at least in their children’s eyes, as close to perfect as possible. Don’t tell your teenage son how you as a teenager got away with stealing things from cars that were left unlocked, and then expect the kid to be wise enough not to try that. All the kid will understand is, “Hey, dad/mom got away with it, I bet I can too” or “Hey, they did it, why can’t I even try it once?” Don’t tell your kid to pick up stuff from their bedroom floors when you leave stuff all over the floor all over the house. It’s truly pointless.

I’m sure teenage kid will never admit that they’re is imitating their parent/s.  In fact they will most probably claim they’re trying to be and do the exact opposite.  But it’s not really something they have a choice in.  It’s more like, it’s what they see, and what they’re used to, and so therefore it’s what they inadvertently do. It’s always the concept that they can get away with what their parents get away with.  If a parent avoided getting drafted by travelling all around the world for half a year, that parent doesn’t really have the right to complain about a son who won’t sign up with Selective Services until threatened to be kicked out of the house.  I just can’t feel sorry for parents who complain about their kids regarding traits that they themselves have.  I keep my mouth shut a lot of times, but sometimes I do feel like saying something like, “Oh, you mean your kid is just like you?”

I think there is a time and place for sharing with kids what stupid and silly things the parents did in their youth. And there are other things that their kids are better off not knowing even when they’re all grown up and somewhat mature.  I do appreciate some parents’ need to be honest with their kids, but I still do think some discretion wouldn’t hurt anyone.  If anything, it’s the overly done “honesty” that ruins whatever respect the kids have for their parents.  I’m sure every kid knows their parents are far from perfect. But it sure would help the parents enforce certain rules if the kids didn’t know exactly what they can throw back at their parents so they don’t have to do the things their parents want them to do. I’ve seen it time and again. Hey, kid, clean your room. Sure, dad, after you clean the living room.  What exactly do you say to that?  Kid’s got you there.  I’m not encouraging one-upmanship…but I think parents should always be at least one step ahead of their kids.

How can a parent expect their kid not to shout at them when the kids see them shouting at the grandparents?  Where exactly is the logic in that?  I can shout at my parents but you can’t shout at me.  HUH?  How can a parent expect kids to respect their grandparents when they see the parent always yelling at the grandparents? Or when the parent keeps ranting about the grandparents to the kids?  I’m sorry, but I don’t think adults should at all argue in front of children. And if they have issues, I don’t think it’s something to be shared with the kids.  Honesty is good, but there should still be a line drawn between the things that kids should see and know, and what they can live without.  And so as not to be biased, I think grandparents shouldn’t talk bad about the parents to the kids either.  That doesn’t do any good at all.  I think freedom of speech is good, I think honesty is good, but I think good judgment always rules there.

You only get back what you give. If your kids are treating you lousily, maybe you’re a doormat. Maybe they know too much about you to have any respect left for you. Maybe they know you don’t believe what you preach. Not everything is to be blamed on outside influence.  A lot of times it’s how the kids are raised.  That’s the foundation of who they are, after all.  If you think your kids don’t listen to you and don’t take your threats of punishment seriously, think back.  Did you really ever follow through with those threats?  Sometimes all it takes is one time for them to realize you mean business. If all those past threats were empty threats, no wonder they don’t take you seriously. Your kids can’t accept that you’ve changed the rules?  Maybe you’ve let them get away with it so long it’s just not believable that you’d be willing to work on changing stuff around.

So before you go ranting to someone about your kids and all their faults, stop and think.  Or better yet, ask your own parents if you were or still are the same. It’s really hard to see your own traits…and besides it would really be something different to ask the people who would have about the same perspective with regards to you as you do with regards to your own kids.  Or ask an outsider (stepparent or someone like that) who sees your daily life, knows all the parties involved, and can give a balanced view of things.  And also, learn to handle the truth gracefully if you do discover that you are just like your kids. Nothing you can do about what other people see…it might be hard to accept but you know deep down they can see more clearly that you ever will, so deal with it.

You don’t want your kids picking up your vices?  Then don’t indulge when in their presence.  Your vice is illegal? All the better reason not to rub the fact in your kids’ faces. You think kids should have enough sense not to try it? Maybe they do, but it does get them mixed up when the parent, who is an adult, apparently doesn’t have the same wisdom to stay away from it…so why should they who are much younger be expected to be wiser? Sure, your kids might be taught what they need to learn in school, but if what they see at home is the exact opposite and a lot easier to do, what do you think they’ll choose?  It’s a matter of thinking things like that through. It’s probably tiring at first, but one gets used to it. And parents could save themselves a lot of headache in the future by thinking things through like that.

Also, visuals are generally more powerful than audible stuff.  There is a game one of my uncles played with us kids when we were younger.  He’d tell us to touch the part of our faces he tells us to touch no matter what part of his face he touches.  So it’s “nose, nose, nose…” while he’s beeping his nose, then he’d shift to a different part of the face. He might say “cheek” and touch his eye…and we’re supposed to touch our cheek because that’s what he SAID.  But watching him, one can easily get distracted and touch the eye too, because that’s what he DID. What is being done is much easier to pay attention to than what is being said. That’s all there is to it.

Monkey see, monkey do. So be a good big monkey and SHOW the little monkeys the right ways to do things. Save yourself some trouble…don’t talk much, because little monkeys don’t really like to listen. Also, if you talk too much, little monkeys tend to tune you out. Do more, talk less, talk softer.
 
 
 2/2/2005
COOL = HUGE WASTE OF MONEY + CONFORMITY

It would seem I’m on a roll where making enemies is concerned. I do not intend to infuriate a lot of people but the non-conformist in me wants to blast those who, in my eyes, are not thinking too clearly. Today’s target: teenage iPod users. I know it’s immensely popular, I know it’s “hot”.  I just think it’s stupid. And I will explain.

Those who have read my previous entries will again find themselves reading about someone I’ve ranted about before. Yes, Miss Perfect is back. And here’s the new deal: some greedy teenager, or maybe a bunch of them came up with a new way to mooch off their parents…Easter gifts. I highly doubt that there are parents who actually have this tradition of giving gifts on Easter. If there are, my apologies but it just sounds phony. I assume that the circle of friends Miss Perfect belongs to concocted this whole concept and they all went home that same day telling their parents this wild tale about their other friends getting gifts from their parents on Easter. Now, as a friend pointed out to me, the whole point of giving gifts on Christmas is to sort of imitate what the wise men did when they found the baby Jesus.  That’s where the gift-giving came from.

If Miss Perfect wants to really get into the spirit of Easter, I am willing to bury her on Good Friday and then check to see if she’d managed to escape from the cave on Easter Sunday. I’ll be nice; I won’t have her die on the cross first. Now THAT is more in the spirit of Easter than gift-giving. Anyway, she intended to get a gift from her dad and another from her mom.  Can you guess what she wanted from her dad? Yes, a $400 iPod.  I’ll bet $400 it’s because one of her friends actually has one…time to keep up with the crowd, you know.

So now we finally get to the part where I rant about the iPod and the apparent lack of common sense of anyone who has one. Well, if you’re super rich, do go away, what you do with your money is your business.  But those of you who are regular folks, you might want to see why I think the whole iPod craze is stupid. An ad for Napster in PC Magazine says it all. I don’t know if it’s legal for me to post the said ad here so I’ll try my best to describe it instead. On top of the page, in big print it said “Do the math.” In smaller print underneath it it said “How much will it cost to fill up your player?”  And then imagine these next lines with pictures: “iTunes (Apple logo) + 10,000 songs to fill an iPod (picture of iPod) = $10,000″.  Then the next line: “Napster to Go (with logo) + Your choice of a million songs to fill your compatible MP3 player (with picture of Dell Pocket DJ, Creative Zen Micro and iRiver H10 all together) = $15 a month”.

Wow, huh!  I mean, think of it…a teenager with an iPod.  Songs become passé so fast, with all those half-talented boy bands, girl bands, slutty actresses, thug wannabes, releasing records so often like they actually are that good. A teenager, for the sake of coolness will want to fill up all 30gb or whatever size storage his/her iPod has.  Let’s just estimate (generously) that a song is about 6mb in size.  That will give us 5,000 songs in 30gb…$5,000 worth. Even if the kid just fills it up to 3gb, that’s $500 right there…on top of the price of the iPod itself. Do parents really want to shell out so much on something that’s just going to be another passing fancy in their teenager’s life? Take an MP3 player other than an iPod, get a subscription to Napster to Go for $15/month.  Sure, the music in Napster to Go is “rented” but heck, these teenybopper songs are going to get old fast anyway and the kids won’t want to keep it after a few weeks. At least it will take a while to rack up $500 that way.

Okay, first I must ask, what kid needs to have that many songs on hand at any time?  If I base my observations on how my stepkids live their typical day, I would say they don’t really have that much time to spend listening to music on a portable player. They go to school, they’re supposed to listen to their teachers during class, they typically talk each other’s ears off during their free time…they come home, they watch TV, yak on the phone, when they feel like it they do homework, they have their boomboxes or computers nearby.  I’d say they have maybe a couple hours free to listen to music.  If they’re home, there’s absolutely no reason they can’t do that with the more conventional devices.  If they’re chatting with friends online, there is absolutely no reason they can’t listen to songs on the computer.  If they’re elsewhere and they’re not moving about, I don’t see why a Discman with MP3 playback (plus a few audio and MP3 CDs) can’t do the job. If they’re elsewhere and moving about, I would think they’d need to keep their ears open for one reason or another. If they’re jogging or something like that, they should keep their ears open for potential traffic issues.  If they don’t want to play it safe while jogging, well, there are a whole lot of really small and handy MP3 players that will handle as much as 1gb worth of songs.  And I gb worth of songs should be enough for jogging; I don’t know anyone who jogs for more than 10 hours straight.

Having said all that…what is the point in getting an iPod? Yeah, it looks cool, it’s hip because all the ads say so, and some people just need to “fit in”. Well, it’s a sad thing that nowadays fitting in means spending so much money needlessly on something that will most probably not seem so cool not too far down the road.  I just think that people are getting more spoiled, unwilling to compromise or improvise, and very superficial.  Yeah, so a Discman is bulky, so it’s even bulkier when there are a bunch of CDs in the backpack. Well, you know what, the songs I like I can sing or hear in my head when I want to.  Try to develop your imagination, that will help you a lot.  And then try to realize that being “cool” is nothing other than being ordinary. You are ordinary because you want the same things that a lot of other people want. You are ordinary because you think the same way that most people do. You are ordinary because you can’t come up with better and more economically feasible ways of amusing yourself. You are ordinary because you can’t get it through your head that maybe, just maybe you can start your own trend and it doesn’t have to cost you a cent.  I am uncool…and I”m proud of it.  At least I’m different and I’m not afraid to think in a different direction.  I have imagination and I can dream up things you never will in a century.  I can live without the silly products that TV ads push in my face because I know I’m way beyond wanting them.  I’m uncool, and if you have an iPod, just think that I’ve saved at least $300 of my money by not being a sucker like you.
 
 
 1/31/2005
THE HIGH AND MIGHTY

There is one thing to be thankful for when your site doesn’t generate a whole lot of traffic because with all the blog sites out there, it’s really hard to find one that’s not on a “proper” blog site.  And I say this because I know if a lot of people read what I’m about to write, I’m going to have a lot of new enemies. But like I always say, I don’t advertise this site, and I don’t tell people to come here (except maybe a few family members and really good friends). So if you don’t like what I’m saying, buzz off.  Go get your own website, or register at one of those popular blog sites and rant all you want like I’m doing here.

Of course we all heard of the horrific tsunami and its effects on lives and property in Asia.  And yes, I do feel sorry for the victims, but at the same time I’m quite glad the Philippines wasn’t affected by it directly…at least not in a big way. So now we get to the part where I’ll most likely make some enemies of those who actually read the crap I write.

It was big news that it took the US a couple of days or so to react to the tragedy, to say how sorry the administration is, how they feel for the victims, etc, etc, etc.  It was also big news that initially the US pledged only $15 million to aid in the global effort to help out the nations that were hit.  The US got a lot of flak for pledging such a “small” amount of money considering how big and powerful the country is. And there were of course some Americans who didn’t take that too lightly.  I read the following in the January 31, 2005 issue of Time magazine:

“…and the US is criticized for not giving more.  Don’t we in the US contribute enough to the world?…If the same disaster were to strike the US, would other nations give as much as we have?”

I think this person (who shall remain unnamed, here at least) has the same darn problem as maybe half the US population has.  Having been here a couple of years, and having been online for at least 5 years, I’ve seen all the different types of people that live in this country. And I hate to say it but a lot of people are just so full of themselves.  They are so “We’re Americans, we’re stronger than you”, “We live in the richest country, be thankful for what we give to your country”, “We speak English, you should too”. There’s this whole irrational “macho” thing going on…and it’s so disgusting when you see it up close.

I totally understand the whole concept of “proud to be American”, but I think when it says “proud” it means “not ashamed”, not “haughty and self-important though lacking in intelligence and understanding of how the rest of the world works”.  I don’t think a lot of people get that. I don’t know if it’s just the way they were raised to think or the society they live in or what, but whatever it is, it sucks big time. It’s time for some people to come back down to earth and see the imperfections that are right in front of them.

They wonder why the US is being criticized for pledging only $15 million to start with…I don’t wonder about that at all. When American tourists go around acting like the natives of the countries they go to absolutely NEED to please them and make them comfortable because they’re Americans, when they insist on speaking English when others can’t understand them instead of them trying (albeit comically) to speak the native tongue as a sign of goodwill and humility when they’re outside of the US, when they go around thinking they’re the most superior people on earth, how can they expect people not to think that they can give more?  Some Americans do go around like that, like they absolutely rule everywhere they go…like everything is so cheap and they can buy it just like that…like everyone has to have the same form of government and the same religion and what have you.  When that’s what other people see, the impression is $15 million in aid is pocket change. While it might have been wrong for anyone to criticize anyone else for how much or how little help they are willing to give, no one can really blame people for thinking that the mighty and all-powerful US government can spare more than just $15 million to help a bunch of third world nations. It’s like, hey, if you’re so rich and powerful, surely you can give more. I can totally understand that mentality.

I think if certain Americans don’t want other people to think that the country is rich enough to give a lot more, they need to change their whole attitude when dealing with foreigners.  For starters, there’s a lot of room for improvement in the humility department.  Personally I think all junior high or middle school students should be required to spend a week at least in some third world country just to get exposed to the really different lifestyle. And I don’t mean they get to stay at hotels and eat at fastfood places, then spend an hour in the slums. I mean, get really immersed in a typical third world country “below the poverty line” way of life, all day, all night, non-stop.  No air-conditioning in the house…no real house to speak of, just a one-room shack.  No bed, just homemade mats to roll on the floor (soil), if there are any at all.  No proper toilets, just a hole in the ground somewhere. No water pipes, just a well some yards away where there’s a line of people with buckets, basins, jars, etc. No fastfood, just whatever the people grow for the purpose of eating it…and yes, they need to experience at least killing a chicken…see how they react to fried chicken when they get back to the US.  No TV, video games, movies, shopping at the mall, cell phones, fashion magazines, designer clothes, school bus, and whatever they take for granted and for some reason assume that everyone else in the world has as well.

That might seem harsh…but it’s not.  It’s not harsh, it’s reality for some people. While people here are spending $30-50 on one item of clothing, even a lot more for the more affluent, in some places $50 is someone’s wage for the whole month. While some people here throw away half-eaten fruits and some other food they’d barely touched, some other people elsewhere are happy just to have a cup of rice and a pinch of salt once a day.  While some people have a TV set with cable or satellite channels in every room in their houses here, there are people elsewhere that are thrilled that their village finally has one TV set with one or two channels in the town hall.  Sure, “be thankful for what we give you poorer countries”…how about “be thankful you’re not in those poorer countries, and share some of your blessings”?
I’ll bet one thing…those people who are complaining about how much the US already has helped every other nation on earth are the same people who don’t ever give to charity.  They say “we” but they’re not really part of the “we” who are making an effort to help those less fortunate. If they don’t want people thinking the US can give more, then maybe they should do something to change the impression that Americans give. Maybe if they didn’t act like god’s gift to mankind, things would be different. Just a thought.
 
 
 1/28/2005
WHAT STEPKIDS DON’T GET

It’s amazing how some people just can’t seem to understand why you don’t like them or why you’re not bonding with them at all. I have been compared to the other stepparent, who did all sorts of things with the stepkids while the parent was busy. In a way my husband was right, he wasn’t that busy and there really was no need for me to be doing all sorts of stuff with them.  With our work schedule, hubby has enough time to do all sorts of stuff with them, saving me the trouble of having to fill in.

But more importantly, the reason I’m not bonding with people I am expected to bond with is that I don’t want to. I’m not just being a spoiled brat; I’m not saying I don’t want to just because I don’t want to.  What they don’t get is how my attitude towards them is directly affected by their attitude towards their dad and their grandparents.  I tend to dislike the people who disrespect the people I like. If I am indifferent towards someone, there is a good reason for it.

I think they should be thankful I haven’t snapped at them big time.  Sure, when I first came here it was made clear that where I came from, this kind of behavior is not tolerated.  What I saw and heard made me want to smack them right across the face, and if it were my brother and I were back in the Philippines, he would have gotten smacked. But this is America, the land where kids tell the parents how to run their own households and it’s “bad” to spank the child. If anyone ever complains to me about how their kids misbehave, they should be ready to see me shake my head and roll my eyes. If they’re lucky, I won’t say “DUH!!!”

I don’t warm up to kids who think they’re perfect. I don’t like kids to talk back or yell at their parents and grandparents.  There are certain tones I don’t think any parent or grandparent should hear from a kid. There is a certain limit to the language kids should use with their elders. These kids are absolutely lacking in respect, and I have used up all my patience to just keep my mouth shut and let it all pass.  And no matter how many times they are told to get rid of the attitude or to show more respect, nothing changes.  And yet they wonder why I’m not getting any closer to them. DUH!

I’m not saying I was a model child.  I’m sure there were times when I showed less respect than I should have.  Yet I know that I didn’t swear at my parents.  I never told them I’m f**king tired of them over and over again.  I didn’t tell them to go f**k themselves when they’re trying to tell me to follow the rules in their house.  And I certainly didn’t have to talk back everytime they reprimand me. Also, at 15, I didn’t make plans on my own and expect my parents to drop what they’re doing to drive me around.  And I didn’t go about planning to buy stuff I don’t really need and expect my parents to pay for it all.

They all talk too much, they all talk too loud, and they’re all smart-mouthed. What is there to like about them?  The youngest, I’m still quite hopeful he’ll turn out better. The two older ones…I don’t care, I really don’t. One refuses to do things the right way even if his way has been proven time and again to be inefficient.  He has a big problem with following rules here and elsewhere, and frankly I don’t see him holding a decent job for a long time.  No boss can tolerate such bullheaded, unreliable and ignorant employees too long.  I don’t see him doing anything to improve himself in any way.  I don’t even see him getting out of high school.  And he dares think he knows better than his dad…SURE.

The other thinks so highly of one parent and totally disregards the other. She wouldn’t take her dad’s advice, but she’d do a 180° turn to please her mom.  I don’t care so much about that, except her dad said she’s smart. Smart to me would be thinking about the logic behind things before making a decision, and sticking to that decision because all other choices have been proven to be the wrong ones…not just listening to someone all the time, no matter what.  That is called “not having a backbone.” And not having a backbone is definitely not smart.

I am just so glad I’m not their mother.  Although if I were their mother, they most probably would have turned out way different. They would have turned out to be a lot more well-behaved, that’s for sure.  There would have been a lot of things they know from day 1 that I won’t tolerate…there would have been the fear of the threat of punishment. There might have been one instance that the punishment was given, and that would have been enough.

If any one of these kids come up to me and ask me why I don’t like him/her, I will simply say, listen to yourself talk to your dad and your grandparents, then you’ll know.

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2004 Posts

August 16, 2006 by annadulcekelly.

 12/13/2004
PESTS AND PETS

I’m not crazy about pets.  There, I said it. Maybe it was just that I was raised not having pets of my own, maybe it’s the fact that where I come from, the main reason for getting a dog is so it’ll bark when there are strangers around your property. But the fact remains that some people shouldn’t have pets.

We have a dog, a cat, and a lizard.  We used to have a bunny, but it died of starvation. The cat is Ms. Perfect’s…so was the bunny. The lizard belongs to the youngest.  The dog is everybody’s pet. If it were up to me, I’d say get rid of the cat and the lizard. I can state at least 2 reasons for thinking that way.  One is, their owners can hardly spare the time to take care of their needs.  Two, the money spent on them can be spent on other more pressing stuff, like bills.

So, why do I say their owners can’t take care of their needs?  Don’t get me wrong, they have time, they just don’t pay attention. The boy has to walk by the lizard’s terrarium everyday at least twice, and it beats me why he can’t remember to clean out his excrements or feed him or give him water everyday. The thing is undersized, needless to say. Of course any living thing that’s nourished maybe 30% of the time can’t possibly reach its full potential. As for the cat, all his stuff is in the laundry room, but considering that a cat doesn’t need to be taken out to do its business, there isn’t a lot of demand for attention. All that needs to be done is feeding and an occasional litter change.  Of course that doesn’t happen regularly either. Most times the cat drags clothes from the laundry room floor into the litterbox to cover his mess. Naturally that means that there are clothes that smell like cat pee. I don’t need to tell you that that just smells really disgusting.

And just lately, Ms. Perfect was bugging her dad for another dog.  Hello?  First off, this dog we have is not even 3 years old and she’s very demanding.  Secondly, her cat is getting neglected by her, and most of the time, her dad takes care of the litter box (usually after the cat has dragged some of his stuff into the box). And she wants a dog???  I don’t think she has any idea what she’s asking for. We all know that some other people are going to end up having to care for her dog. We know that she won’t have the dog sleep in her room because it might eat off of the dirty dishes and food she leaves laying around on her bedroom floor. We all know that she’s not about to give up part of her social life to pay more attention to the dog.  We all know she’s ditzy and she’ll get tired of the dog sooner or later.  Just like the cat, there will come a time when it will like someone else better because this someone else pays more attention. The cat now usually attacks her. I’m not surprised. I would attack her if I were her cat.  And she wants a dog…when she can’t even take care of a not-too-demanding cat.  That’s just a pile of horse manure.

I think there is a concept from the movie 28 Days that should be explored. One of the rehab residents asked how long he should wait after he is discharged to get into a relationship.  The guy in charge said something like “Get a plant. If it is still alive after a year, get a pet. If the pet is still alive after a year, then you’re ready.”  I think that should be done here. Let her take care of a plant, and I don’t mean cactus or some other thing that requires minimal care.  Maybe some flowering plant she can keep in her room. And if it’s still alive after a year (which I highly doubt) she can keep her cat.  And if she has 2 different plants with very different needs, and they both stay alive for a year, then maybe she’s ready for a dog.

Also her dad pointed out that the cat will most likely be left with him after she goes off to college. She hopes to be allowed to bring it (highly doubtful) or if not, it can stay with her mom. Of course, most likely, the mom has no idea she might have the cat.  And I don’t really see it happening.  We’ll see.  If it were up to me, this cat would be in a more suitable home…where the owner actually takes care of it.

If I were to choose a pet, it would probably be a fish in a not-so-big container.  Feed, change water, ignore. No petting, no taking out, no fear of getting pricked by spines on its skin, no nothing.  But I still would rather not have a fish.  I do well without the responsibility of having a pet. I can tolerate all the pets we have here.  The bunny’s gone but I still think we have 2 too many.  The lizard’s cage/terrarium is taking up precious space which can be used for storage or display.  The cat sheds all over and it’s hell getting all the fur off of clothes.  The cat’s owner has asthma and she probably is breathing in some cat dander.  I know I start sniffling and sneezing after the cat’s been on the bed. So it just can’t be good for her.  Of course, talking anyone into giving the cat away is out of the question.  The only way the cat is leaving is if it’s on its way to be cremated when it dies.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, Ms. Perfect also wishes we lived out in the country so she can perhaps have a horse!  Gee, you think you’ll have time for a damn horse? There’s grooming, there’s feeding, there’s walking…and I don’t think she’s seen the size of its waste.  Who on earth is going to clean up after it? I bet she again expects other people to step in. Now there’s a responsible animal owner for you.  Get a clue! You can’t take care of a cat, what makes you think you might be able take care of a damn horse? I swear she’s the most clueless person I’ve ever met.

I know what will shut her up about getting another pet.  If her dad tells her she can get another pet only if she takes all the dirty dishes out of her room once she’s done with them, keep her clothes in the closet, keep her room all clean and organized and make sure their PC is spyware- and virus-free, I bet she’ll just say “screw it”. She has so many things she needs to do that she just wouldn’t make time for…and she thinks she wants another pet.  Someone please knock on her skull and ask if common sense is somewhere in there, because I can’t see it through the windows.

Another pet MY ASS!
 
 
 12/13/2004
LETHAL COMBINATION

This here is about something I love and something I’ve come to dislike, and why they shouldn’t mix.  Internet and kids; and it’s the internet that I love, make no mistake about it. I’ll whap anyone who thinks it’s the other way around. Oh, and when I say kids I don’t mean 3- to 10-year old ones. I mean 11- to maybe 20-year old ones.  And also, do exclude the geeks (I love geeks…I think I’m one) who actually have some idea about how to deal with the dangers of going online.

Personally, I don’t think kids should be allowed on the computer if it has internet access.  I wouldn’t say I think they should be supervised, because I wouldn’t want to be the one assigned to the boring task. I think every kid needs to go to some class, like The Internet and Privacy Protection 101, before they can even go online. I think if they’re going online, they should be well aware of what to watch out for.  If there were such a class somewhere, I’d gladly pay for my stepkids to attend so I won’t have to try to clean their PC for 2-3 hours each time.  Well, perhaps I should give such a class, because I’m sure there are other kids (and adults) who just don’t know what they’re letting strangers access simply by going online unprotected.

Before I go on ranting, here are the necessities, and I don’t mean choose one. I mean get all, or at least all of the free ones if you don’t want to pay for anything. Never go online without a firewall; ZoneAlarm is a very dependable one and it’s available at ZoneLabs.  They have a registered version and a free version.  As with most things, naturally the registered version has better features than the free one but the free one is good too. Also, everytime they update, you have the choice of sticking with the free one or trying out the Pro trial for 15 days. If you choose to try the Pro version (I do recommend it, even if only to use the cache cleaner) you can revert to the free version after the 15 days expire.  I have my computer in stealth mode all the time, that’s the highest security level and you are well-hidden. You get significantly fewer invasion attempts from somewhere else that way.

As for AntiVirus, there are a lot of people who will swear by Norton.  That’s fine.  As for my experience, there was one time when I had my hubby run a scan using AVG Free Edition after he’d run Norton.  Guess what, it caught something that Norton overlooked.  Now, considering that AVG is free and Norton is not, I’d say stick to AVG.  AVG is made by Grisoft.  Again, there’s a free version and a professional version, but the free is good enough.  Their newest version (AVG 7.0) is much better than the older ones (AVG 6) and they’re discontinuing support or updates for the older one by the end of this year. So if you have the older version, it’s time to switch over.

Space Odyssey should get back those megs or gigs that you badly need for other more important stuff. What it does is it takes out most of the crap you have on your PC.  It’s tedious doing that on your own, folder by folder, plus there’s a lot of stuff that you just can’t see even if you have your folders showing hidden files. So this takes care of that for you.  Just do the express clean, select all (or not, if you see something in the list that you want to keep), check, then eliminate. The author of the program apparently doesn’t have the site anymore, so therefore there is no more support for it, but it’s still a nice thing to have.  You can still get it free here.  I’m probably going to try other disk cleaners, and find something safe and effective for Windows XP.

I use 2 free and 2 pro spyware cleaners. I probably don’t need all of them but I don’t see the harm in making sure that nothing is missed.  The free ones are Spybot Search & Destroy made by Patrick Kolla and Ad-Aware SE from Lavasoft.  Spybot S&D is totally free, although you can donate some money to the author if you feel like it. Ad-Aware, I think has a pro version, but again the free version works well enough. Most people don’t realize it but sometimes all these adware/malware/spyware that get installed in their computers are acquired by simply going to some websites, or by installing some programs (mostly freeware) and ironically, by installing some programs that claim to get rid of spyware in your PC.  Yes, there are those fake cleaners…maybe they do clean some spyware, but at the same time they install more.  So that’s not really helping anything or anybody. My advice, if you see ads on the web for spyware cleaners, don’t go to their homepages because they’re naturally going to have nothing bad to say about the software. Go look for reviews elsewhere; maybe Google the software name and the word “review”. I bet you’ll come up with some other sites telling people to stay away from these things as they are fakes.  I use only those that are tried and tested.

The 2 other spyware cleaners I use are not free. One is PestPatrol from here.  Actually I got mine for free. ZoneLabs once sent me an offer (back when I had ZoneAlarm Pro) to get PestPatrol and get full (mail-in) rebate for it. So I jumped on the offer.  But it’s worth the money if you buy it. I bought another license and installed it on my father-in-law’s computer, which I use for doing the payroll. Sometimes the free spyware cleaners I have miss one or two items, and PestPatrol takes care of that.  Usually though, PestPatrol catches nothing after I’ve run the other 2 before it. Like I said earlier, I probably don’t need all these at the same time but it makes me feel good to have them anyway.  The last spyware cleaner I have, I’m still using on trial (30 days) but intend to buy later on. It’s called SpySweeper from Webroot.  It takes care of spyware and also traces left after the other spyware cleaners are done with their jobs. The traces might or might not be harmful, I don’t really know, but it still feels good knowing they’re gone.  PC Magazine has raved time and again about SpySweeper and they do have reason to do that.

Another (not free) product from Webroot that I’m trying out for 30 days is called Window Washer and it’s supposed to clean out the Internet Explorer cache and other useless stuff.  It seems to be working great, too.  I’m thinking whether I should get it or not.  What’s stopping me from getting this, SpySweeper and ZoneAlarm is the fact that they’re not asking for a one-time payment. Instead, it’s a yearly subscription allowing customers to get free updates for a year after which they will need to renew.  I would happily do a one-time payment, I’m not so keen on getting a yearly subscription. But we’ll see.

Lastly, I don’t use Internet Explorer. I use Opera from Opera.com and SlimBrowser from FlashPeak.  I would prefer to use Opera all the time but sadly a number of sites just don’t display correctly in Opera. Opera, being entirely different from IE, is not subject to attacks directed at IE and its security flaws.  Also, Opera allows you to open multiple sites in one Opera window so you don’t have all these browser windows on your taskbar.  It can be annoying when you’re in half a dozen sites and you can’t make out the names anymore because all these windows are cramped in your taskbar…and you don’t feel like moving the taskbar up a bit to give them more space.  So for those websites that won’t display correctly in Opera, I use SlimBrowser. SlimBrowser is dependent on IE, meaning you have to have IE to run it.  Thus, I am guessing it probably almost as vulnerable as IE, although if you look at their homepage, you will see a lot of features that IE doesn’t have.  And like Opera, you can browse many sites in one SlimBrowser window.  I find that really useful because I love multitasking and at any given time, there are an average of 4 or 5 programs on my taskbar. If I have Outlook, Paintshop Pro and 2 folders open, and I’m browsing 6 sites, I’m just looking at 5 items on my taskbar instead of 10.

MOST importantly, all the protection you can get won’t work as well as they should if you don’t regularly update them. Most of them have automatic updates as an option, some of them you have to update when you remember to do it.  Also, besides ZoneAlarm and AVG, the others don’t normally start up with Windows.  I think some of them have the option of doing that, and some you have to run every now and then to scan for malicious stuff. Basically, I do scans maybe once a week, although if there are multiple users and some are not that computer-savvy, I would suggest maybe twice a week just to cut down on potential damage.

Okay, now that I’m done enumerating what I do to protect my computer, I’ll go on and rant. And just in case you’ve forgotten what this is about, it’s about why I don’t think kids should be on the Internet. The basic fact is this: KIDS DON’T CARE!  Oh, sure, they do…they care about being able to play/download games, play/download music and videos, chatting with their friends, and if they’re older, getting all the free porn they can. A popup window comes up saying “You need to install this to run that”, they just automatically click Yes most of the time, without thinking about the effects of their impulsive action. It’s like, OK, OK, yes already, just let me at that game NOW.  They don’t care…they don’t care to read what that software they’re installing is, they don’t care to read whether the default homepage of the browser is going to be changed, and they probably won’t care to read it if it said that every keystroke from now on will be monitored so they can get passwords and such.

I’ve cleaned the kids’ PC maybe 3 times so far…why am I ranting about this just now? I’m ranting because we got a letter from our ISP saying that someone in this household just violated copyright laws by downloading some movie through Kazaa. It stated there the username in Kazaa and the file in question.  And it’s Ms. Perfect from my previous rant.  She’d been told time and time again, don’t use Kazaa…”well, I’m using Kazaa Lite now, it has no spyware”. SURE!  Maybe she’s right, but they’re not exactly careful where they go online and they just pick up spyware elsewhere. And guess what…someone somewhere found out she downloaded something she shouldn’t have downloaded…how do you suppose that happened? And she thought she was safe with Kazaa Lite because (I think) her mom uses it too. Give me a break! Kazaa is “hot” now and users all over are being tracked down and sued. And the music and movie industries don’t really mind suing and fining minors.  If they take her to court, who do you think is going to have to pay the fine? Her dad. And of course, if they’re going to sequester the kids’ computer, what’s to stop them from sequestering the other computers in the house? Plus, what if our ISP decides to stop providing service to us? If my computer is taken away from me, or if we lose cable internet service, someone is going to get strangled with a USB cord, I swear.

It wouldn’t be so bad, not being careful where they go online, IF they remember to update and run the stuff I installed on their PC for their protection.  But guess what, they don’t update the things. What good is it, running them, when their databases are out-of-date?  You’re not going to catch the new virus or spyware that way.  You’re not safe at all, and all those programs are virtually useless.  They only get updated when I go and clean up their computer messes.  It takes me so long to clean everything…most of the time there’s a handful of trojans, about 40 registry entries, hundreds of cookies, and half a dozen malicious installed software. And everytime I clean the PC, I give their dad the totals of what I got out of the system.  The last time was last week, and this is the result of my labors: Ad-Aware took out 19 registry keys, 32 registry values, 91 files (cookies, software, etc); AVG caught 4 trojans; Spybot S&D got rid of 14 more files, mostly cookies; SpySweeper removed 66 items and 272 traces.  There were a couple of fake spyware scanners, a couple of IE toolbars, a couple of web optimizers, some files that have something to do with “bargains” and something that was labeled as a transponder.  I just looked it up and this is what I found: “Transponder is an IE Browser Helper Object. It monitors web pages requested and data entered into forms, sends this information to its home server, and opens pop-up advertisement windows. It also has the capability to update itself and install other software.” I don’t know about you, but I find it scary that it can update itself and install other software.

I can understand how my hubby doesn’t want to share his computer with them.  They tend to screw things up for him. And I wouldn’t suggest he take away their PC and share his so he knows what they’re getting into.  I wouldn’t want to give him any reason to tell me to share my PC too. I alone use this one, and that is why I’ve stayed as safe as possible. I know what things to avoid, I know where not to go, I know which programs to run every now and then to make sure I am not letting hackers and other strangers see the stuff they’re not supposed to see.  Still I don’t think they should have their own.  Or maybe if they keep their own PC, they should have it out here with the other 2 so in case I’m looking over and one of them is just about to click Yes to some untested download in a popup window, I can whap him/her and tell him/her to think or ask first.  No, I don’t whap them for real…in my mind I’ve delivered thousands of whaps.

That last time I cleaned their PC, I uninstalled Kazaa and Kazaa Lite which she was supposed to remove right after she was told about the letter. I don’t care if it’s not running at the moment…she was told to uninstall.  Keeping it closed and uninstalling it are 2 different things.  I took them out.  Then I went looking for the “hot” file, which she was supposed to remove from the PC too.  She claimed she wanted the song, not the movie. If that was so, how come she didn’t delete the movie upon finding out it’s a movie? It was there, and I got rid of it. Like her dad said, the mere fact that it was taking much longer to download it should’ve been a red light…it’s not just a song.  There’s a considerable difference in file sizes there. A typical MP3 file would be around 3 to 6 megabytes for a standard length song at 128kbps.  If something is bigger than 100 megs, it must be a whole damn album or a different file type.

Sidebar: while I was looking for that folder with her downloads so I can get rid of the offending movie, I saw the folder that had the user names for AIM.  I don’t know who among her friends get to use that computer but someone apparently logs on as givinheadgirl10 or something like that.  Now, she and her friends are all around 15 or 16 years of age. I don’t think it’s sending a good message, logging onto AIM with such a name.  That’s like screaming “I’m a slutty teenager, screw me!” at a crowded party. What the heck? Are you trying to invite pedophiles and other pervs to contact you? If it’s her, then she’s obviously clueless about the implications of such a user name. If it’s one of her friends, whoever it is is just as clueless and should just go and screw up their own computers at home and not bother to bring trouble to the one here.  If they don’t have computers at home…well, I think that should be a relief for their parents.

A lot of times I have half the mind to just say “To hell with it, I’m not cleaning that PC anymore”, but it just eats at me, knowing there is a computer in the house that’s full of the crap that otherwise bright people create to make going online less fun for everyone.  It’s like doing the dishes, it’s a thankless job. No matter how fast you do it or how well you do it, you know sometime soon you’re going to have to do it all over again and it’s not going to go better than the previous times.

The eldest stepkid now stays at his grandparents’ house and used (yes, past tense) the computer there. His staying over there coincided with the appearance of a trojan virus.  I didn’t have to wonder where that came from. Mom doesn’t use the computer and Dad does only to do business…I use it for the payroll.  So, none of us 3 would’ve downloaded that from somewhere.  Dad knows not to open emails from unknown sources.  Heck, he even deletes those from ZoneLabs sometimes. At the time that that virus appeared, or rather, at the time I found it (since I use that PC maybe twice a month) IE was not set to keep any history at all.  But I wanted to know what was going on so I set it to keep history for 14 days.  That way I can check things out everytime I do the payroll. One time when I turned the PC on to do the payroll, I noticed that the icon for Windows Media Player was different.  It used to be this round and colorful thing, and it had become on of those rectangular icons that usually tell you that the program the shortcut is for has changed or been removed. So a red light came on in my head and I heard sirens, LOL. I told Dad I’m going to run tests before I start working, because something was definitely wrong.

First thing I did was to check the IE history. I was used to the stepkid being a hypochondriac and I’ve seen entries like sites on MS and some other neurological diseases that he visited. This time was different though, there must have been about 30-40 PORN sites listed in the history. And without mentioning the names, I’ll say that some of them are pretty sick. Dad had a popup blocker installed and I could block those sites, but it meant visiting them one by one so I can block them.  And I knew better than to do that.  Any one of them could’ve changed Windows Media Player, why risk doing more damage?  If you’re wondering why I haven’t recommended the popup blocker at the start, it’s because I found that if you are too quick to click, you just might block stuff you didn’t mean to block. I once accidentally blocked My Documents so everytime I tried opening it, it closed on its own.  I don’t want to be blamed for anyone having such a problem, and it can be a problem when you have to go through so many other blocked sites on the list to find out where you messed up.  So I didn’t block them.

I ran all the tests, got rid of a virus, a great number of cookies and registry entries, and a few files and folders.  However, the Windows Media Player stayed screwed up. I went to the folder where the exe file was, found wmplayer.exe, and thought it was too damn small to be the right thing. I did try to open it.  It didn’t open a Windows Media Player window; instead it opened an IE window and proceeded to load a porn site. I didn’t stay long enough to find out which one it was.  One look at that little box on the upper right, below the Minimize, Maximize and Close buttons did it for me. I had to delete that folder, go into the registry and delete all entries pertaining to the media player, and download and reinstall Windows Media Player again. That wasn’t fun.

Now, I knew that this particular stepkid is Dad’s favorite grandkid. I also know that my hubby had a hard time sometimes telling Dad about this kid’s latest mess, because Dad tends to defend him. So I thought if I was going to tell him what happened, I had better be well-armed.  I didn’t think he’d blow up in my face; he usually only does that with my hubby, and he’s usually very nice to me. Nonetheless, I thought I had to show him just how grave this thing was. So I printed out an article that said that 98% of porn sites have one or more spyware running on their sites.  I also printed out an article about what spyware can do. And then I included a screenshot of the IE history with me labeling which sites are porn…although that was totally unnecessary for most of them.  Well, I got no rebuttal, no violent reactions, no denials. Then the next time I was over there, he asked me to put a password on the PC.  With Windows XP, there is a way to do that after Windows has loaded.  I have this PC done that way, not that I think anyone would try to use this…and I set it so the screensaver has a password too. Dad’s PC runs Windows ME, so I just made a password on power on. So if someone turns the PC on, the first thing to be done is to type in the password, even before Windows can load.  I guess what I showed him got to him, and he knew if nothing was done, I was probably going to have another tiff with the kid sometime and that’s not good. We already hate each other, but I’m pretty sure we can hate each other some more.

I’m guessing the kid got on the computer once since then, and it’s probably after Dad left it on or something. At least that’s what I’m guessing from the IE history.  Just one porn site and no spyware or anything big.  After that, when I went to do the payroll again, I found that someone’s already powered on the PC…I’m guessing that was him because it was still on the Power On Password screen. He probably tried to type in all the passwords he could think of and got nowhere. Good.  These kids have been told time and again that that is a business PC, and for some reason that’s just not getting through to them. Just in case one of them manages to get on that PC, I still run the tests when I’m over there. Nothing wrong with making sure everything’s fine.

In this day and age, one would think kids would be more aware of the cons of the Internet. But I guess it’s easy to forget all about the bad things when you’re having or looking for fun. I don’t get it though, because I would think they’d want to keep themselves safe. Or maybe kids have changed that much over the years. I just thought if there’s something or someone that they cared about, it would be themselves.  I don’t clean up their mess because I care about them, though.  I do it because I care about my hubby and me. I don’t want the kids screwing up enough that it’s going to affect us as well.  I don’t really care if something happens to them after they screw up; I think that just might teach them a lesson…”might”. But if there’s any chance of my husband or me getting sucked into their troubles, then I guess I should step in and do something about it.

I have to thank an ex-BF for the info on online safety.  He was a lousy BF but he sure knew a lot of useful stuff. He made me aware of all the dangers lurking on the web. And I guess I have to thank myself for loving to tinker with stuff. Back in the Stone Age when we were using Windows 95, I went into every folder there was on the hard drive, and I learned to delete all the stuff in the Temporary Internet Files folder, because back then, Windows didn’t try to hide them. This might also be the first time my parents will learn that I had to reinstall Windows half a dozen times at least when my tinkering resulted in something tragic…not that anyone could notice after Windows had been reinstalled.  Sometimes though it’s a curse knowing all this.  You know at least this much, and everything just sucks on your brain all the time.
 
 
 11/17/2004
THE $50 SWEATSHIRT

This rant is going to be pretty obvious, as far as who it’s about, but right now I don’t care. But just so there is no reason for anyone to go ballistic on me I’m not putting the person’s name in here; we’ll just call this Ms. Perfect.

Here’s the thing.  I do think people should indulge sometimes, buy something special once in a while.  However, there is also this thing about living within your means.  If your dad is earning $3200 a month and there’s a home loan to be paid, some belts need to be tightened. A $50 sweatshirt should be automatically out of the question.

What is so special about this sweatshirt?  Nothing.  Okay, fine, a team logo, a high school team logo to be exact, not NBA, NFL or anything big like that.  And just why did she have to have this, considering she just bought something like it a few months ago and it still fits perfectly? Because her friends have the same sweatshirt and she NEEDS to fit in.  When asked by her dad if it’s at all possible for her to buy sweatshirts in the future that are not through the school or this city so it will cost less, her answer was no.  She didn’t want something that “a million other people” have and she wants one with the team logo.  I’m sorry but that doesn’t quite strike me as reasonable. Actually, I take that back, I’m not sorry…it’s just plain unreasonable bordering on really stupid.

What the hell is it about having the same things your friends have?  And man, the inconsistency of it…she buys a cell phone model because none of her friends have it and it’s cool to be different. And then she wants the same sweatshirt that everyone is wearing. And $50??? I could get a whole bunch of stuff with $50, I can’t imagine spending $50 on one item except maybe if it’s computer-related, like software or a memory card for my digicams.  In the right stores, $50 could go a long way but of course she is not about to go to the stores I go to.

It’s really getting tiring, all this crap she’s giving her dad about stuff she wants that she thinks he should pay for.  As far as I know he’s responsible for the necessities.  A $50 sweatshirt is not a necessity, neither is spending $20 at least on every friend’s or acquaintance’s birthday gifts, neither is a halloween costume.  For some reason she thinks he should shoulder the expenses when she wouldn’t even consider going to places where these same items would be a lot cheaper. Screw that!  She wants it, she can buy it. She should get her head out of the clouds and see the reality of budget being tight. She’s not the queen or some deity, nobody deserves to be expected to follow her every whim.  And she’s too damn far from perfect to be rewarded with these things.

The problem is Ms. Perfect thinks she’s just that…perfect. “Why did I have to have siblings”, she asks. Hell, you’re not even the firstborn, so don’t even freaking go there! And imagine her being the only child, her head would be so far up her ass it’s never going to come out no matter what.  She thinks she’s so cool, and she tends to look down on people who are not in the same clique. You know the type of clique I’m talking about, the uppity girls who talk of nothing but shopping, makeup, trends and probably exchange tales of when they gave their boyfriends blowjobs and how they think it’s not considered sex.  That’s not cool, that’s superficial, that’s shallow, that’s meaningless…and a total waste of time. She thinks she’s so smart because she’s an honor student.  I hate to say this but the American school system is so lax. I’ve seen far smarter kids back home who get average grades. She wouldn’t live a day in a Philippine private school…I don’t know about public schools, I never went to one.

There’s this attitude that she can live without, really. And the sad thing is I don’t see it going away real soon.  She talks of living with her mom once her mom moves back to this state, and probably this neighborhood.  A lot of times now I think that’s a good thing. Go find someone else to bug and don’t expect your dad to come running anymore when you call, you spoiled brat.  Let your mom know finally just how horrible it is to be around you. Let’s see if she sees you the same way after a year or so. Hopefully this will teach you to be grateful for all the things your dad did for you or allowed that your mom just won’t say yes to.

Oh, and then of course she still stacks up dirty dishes in her room, and spills food on her mattress too.  I’ve never seen a more slovenly person in my life. The word “icky”, if it’s in a dictionary, should come with a picture of her room.  So anyway, her dad tells her that he’d brought out these dirty dishes and that she should keep it up. Flashback to several months ago, when she said she’d do the laundry and the dishes for extra money. To make a long story short, she wasn’t willing to give up part of her social life to keep either up, so after a short while no one was doing them. It’s not like she did them regularly either, or that she did them satisfactorily. The dishwasher can only do so much, you still should scrub stuff that’s stuck to the dishes before popping them in the machine.  And that goes especially for those dishes she kept in her room forever.

So anyway, her dad says to her, it’s unfair to me to be just done doing one load and come back to the kitchen to find the sink full of stuff from her room.  And then Ms. Perfect puts on this “unappreciated slave” thing, like “you seem to care more about stuff piling up in the sink now that Anna’s doing the dishes than when I did it”.  Let me point out the obvious differences. I do the dishes regularly. I find stuff in the sink, I wash them out with soap, I put them in the dishwasher, and the sink is empty again. I do this until there’s enough to run a full load, and I put the dishes away in their proper places right after the load is done.  There is never anything piling up in the sink unless she just brought out stuff from her room. That’s the first difference. The second one is, I probably use the least number of dishes and utensils in this house and I don’t let them pile up elsewhere before bringing them to the sink.  I wash them out with soap, a scrubbing pad and feel the dishes with my hands to make sure there’s no food stuff left.  Ms. Perfect on the other hand, insists on wearing these gloves and “washing” them out with a brush. I’m not saying the brush is ineffective. I’m saying she’s not putting enough energy in cleaning with the brush because stuff still gets left on the dishes.  And if it’s bubblegum or yogurt or some other sticky stuff that’s been stuck on the plate for a week, common sense will tell anyone that more effort has to be put in scrubbing.

So, really, that short stint of her doing the dishes was mostly her cleaning her own mess up.  No one is worse than her in that department, and there’s no one else to blame for the piling up of dishes since about half of it has to be hers.  Her dad got the impression that she had this “well, someone did it to me before, so I’m doing it to them now” mentality, which was totally unfair because I never use so many things and I always clean them afterwards.  I wash them with soap, they’re practically ready to be eaten out of again.  She can’t possibly say that about the stuff she uses. So there! Heck, I’m not even asking her to rinse the things out anymore. I would just rather think she’s too dumb to figure out a way to make time (like a couple minutes a day) to bring dishes out of her room everyday.  That way I don’t get pissed off.

Anyway, I never did think she was smart to begin with. And everyday that I live in the same house just strengthens that belief. Maybe if she restructured her list of priorities and she got her head out of her ass so she’s not this pompous bitch who needs to get everything trendy even if it is beyond the family budget, I might think about changing my mind about how dumb she is.
 
 
 11/07/2004
OF THINGS REMEMBERED

Just in case 1) someone decides I need a lobotomy, 2) I get injured and have amnesia, 3) I grow old and my mind quits on me, 4) I grow old, my mind still works but the rest of me quits, 5) whatever other reason there might be…I thought I should start writing down things I remember from way back, while I still remember them.  So here goes…

I remember…

- in nursery (one level below kindergarten), learning to write my name on yellow legal pad.

- as a kid, looking forward to sometime between my birthday and Christmas, when my grandpa and grandma (mom’s parents) took me to the bookstore to buy whatever I wanted.

- as a kid, going to the movies to see local slapstick comedies with my grandparents.

- on my first day in kindergarten, upon getting to school, thinking that telling my grandma I have a toothache will save me from having to go to my classroom.

- in kindergarten, my grandma taking me everyday to this bakery to pick out snacks for recess.

- in kindergarten, getting bonked on the head by a classmate after I refused to share my snacks.

- in kindergarten, with 4 other classmates, pretending to be Voltes V, each of us a different part of the robot.

- seeing The Rescuers in an open-air theater.

- in prep (one level above kindergarten, before 1st grade), the kids in my class not talking with me because I spoke only English and they of course spoke Tagalog…they thought I came from the US.

- trying to get into the new school for prep, being too shy to recite the alphabet without my dad in the room.

- my dad bathing me and making sure I know my parents’ names, my address, my grandparents’ address and phone number.

- one of my uncles recording the audio of  soap opera on a cassette tape and narrating what people are doing at the same time, so my grandma (who was in church) won’t totally miss an episode of her beloved soap.

- my grandpa doing a wiggly butt dance on request.

- my grandpa trying to teach me how to swim, letting me pinch my nose and duck my head underwater…but I only dipped my nose in the water and not for more than a minute.

- the first Kris Kringle gift I remember getting was in 3rd grade, a Peter Pan game board.

- doodling on a blackboard with my sister, chalk in one hand and sandwich in the other…and my grandma telling me I just bit off part of the chalk…oops, wrong hand!

- waking up to the smell of bacon, mostly while in grade school.

- buying my first Barbie doll with my own Christmas money…although my parents did chip in for the one set of clothes for my Barbie.

- in 1st grade, making a classmate cry after scolding her for kicking my Thermos and breaking the glass inside.

- in 1st grade, my sister in kindergarten appearing outside my classroom to tell me of a classmate who was giving her a hard time.

- having recurrent dreams about falling down the stairs in my grandparents’ house for the longest time, only to find out later that my dad fell down the stairs at a mall while carrying me when I was really young…therefore I think that’s where the dreams came from…and the fear of stairs too.

- having black-and-white dreams…of dancing with flowers that have feet on a stage…of falling through what seemed like sheet after sheet of tissue paper or really thin cotton candy.

- being appointed class vice-president by the adviser, in 2nd grade…listing the “noisy girls” on the blackboard while the teacher is out.

- in 3rd grade, learning the multiplication table really quickly out of sheer terror…my teacher Ms. Sarmiento had really long fingernails and she liked poking the heads of the students who can’t give her the right answers.

- my “best friend” in 3rd grade saying we’re not best friends anymore…she asked me to nominate her as PR officer of the class, I did…but she lost because I was the only one who voted for her.

- discovering in 3rd grade that I’m afraid of heights after being on top of the ferris wheel just once.

- being the passenger of one of my uncles when he clipped the gate backing into the driveway.

- our first maid, Luisa, and how my sister always cried when my mom left for work…she always got spanked by Luisa.

- Luisa pronounced “milk” like “melk”.

- my grandpa always singing along everytime the Star-spangled Banner is sang or played on TV.

- laughing as softly as possible with my sister when we spent nights at my grandparents’…we were on a mat on the floor with my grandma and my grandpa slept on this big wooden (no mattress) bed next to the mat…my grandpa snored and each time he did, we laughed.

- my sister falling asleep while chewing her food…lunch at home…at the table…sitting up…go figure, LOL.

- my sister punching my loose tooth out…maybe 2nd grade.

- my sister still sleeping in a crib, getting hold of a pair of scissors and cutting her bangs…she must’ve been in kindergarten.

- sitting in on my sister’s nursery class…playing with their toys, sharing their snack, using the playground…in my panties.

- from 4th to 6th grade, having fist fights with and throwing stones at a boy who lived 2 doors down…I had a big crush on his older brother who was really nice…my nemesis later turned out to be gay.

- my sister eating tomatoes right off the plant outside our living room window.

- our house getting extended, and the carpenter who pronounced “thirty” like “tarty”.

- after my 2 other sisters were born, resenting it that the Christmas money had to be divided in 4 instead of 2.

- getting a minor electric shock while plugging the TV in…damp fingers from licking chocolate off of them…bare feet on marble…maybe a finger touching the metal part…whatever it was, it kept me away from electrical outlets for at least a year.

- my grandpa “battling” a feisty rat in the kitchen…rat was the size of a small cat.

- maids quitting because I was a mean little brat.

- yelling at an uncle because I didn’t want to go to bed until my grandma came home…I think I threw a Barbie doll at him one time.

- the same uncle taking off with a friend to trek up the mountain visible from our big arched window in the living room…and him coming back with one of the knees of his jeans ripped after he fell.

- a bird pooped on my head on my graduation day, after 6th grade.

- my grandpa buying up all the raffle tickets I’m supposed to sell for my school.

- freshman year in high school, there were so many small people in my class we decided to be known as the “bonsai family”.

- in 1987, on my youngest sister’s 1st birthday, my right knee got dislocated for the first time.

- the second time my knee got dislocated, in 1989 or 1990, I actually saw the dislocation…the horror at the sight was greater than the pain.

- sophomore year in high school, getting dumped by my “friend” because I was too quiet.

- still 2nd year HS, having a crush on my classmate (Catholic, all-girls, private school) because she was smart, artistic, humble…and she looked like a boy.

- the first gift I ever got from a boyfriend: a fuchsia Garfield trinket box.

- my crush of 4 years, from 1984 to 1988, answering “secret” in every “autograph book” under “who is your crush?”…except mine, where he told me it was one of the girls who lived at the other end of the street…still boggles me why he chose to tell me.

- our next-door neighbor’s nieces spending too much time on OUR phone…it was the start of the deterioration of our “friendship”.

- at 4 or 5, developing a fear of dogs after maybe half a dozen started charging and barking at me while I was on my way home from a neighbor’s house…screamed for my dad, who carried me home.

- laundrywomen taking our laundry down to the river, all wrapped in one of the bedsheets.

- developing an unhealthy fear of emergency rooms and hospitals after one of my sisters had convulsions and was rushed to one when she was a baby…they were giving her a shot and she was crying her lungs out…I had to cry along.

My brain is aching, LOL. I’ll be back with more sometime.
 
 
 11/07/2004
LEAVE ME ALONE!

Certain people annoy me the most…it’s the kind that’s too stubborn, too ignorant and too full of themselves to accept that you are different.  In their tiny little minds, they are always right and you just have to know what they’re like and why you should be like them. Since when did it become wrong to be different?

And for the most part these people have the tendency to really love to discuss religion or politics. And that makes it doubly annoying to me; those are the two things I’d rather not discuss because I think they’re overrated and they get way more attention than they deserve.  I don’t care much for either and that’s that.

I have seen people go ballistic upon finding out that others have a different religion or no religion at all.  Sadly, these people tend to be “Christian”. I’m sorry but it seems to me very “unChristian” to go around condemning people who are not Christian. If I remember my bible correctly, Jesus wasn’t mean to the Gentiles. Yes…I am a lapsed Catholic and therefore I do know a little bit of what’s in the bible. But that’s the last I’ll mention about that book until people can explain to me why dinosaurs are nowhere to be found in there.

Anyway, I believe that people have the right to choose their religion or choose not to have one. I totally respect someone’s right to worship the spirit that lives in the tree in their backyard…I totally respect someone who thinks of life as purely scientific, 0% supernatural.  To each his own.  I am not one to judge, except when people start acting up and as far as I know going against the very religion they try to defend and spread.

In one of the Yahoo groups I belong to, people started talking about their plans for Halloween, and of course other things popped up here and there. Someone casually mentions she’s pagan. Someone said she hasn’t been in church in years. The pagan lady said she had to delay her marriage plans because of health problems.  AND THEN…this Christian person goes “So you’re pagan, you think you’re cool?” and “There is no better time than now to go back to church” and “Maybe you had health problems because you’re pagan” and “You should spend more time in church than trick-or-treating”.  And I was thinking, WHAT THE HELL is your problem?

I just couldn’t pass that one up.  I had to say something and I said my piece as far as people having a choice and everything being fine for as long as we’re all doing good. Then I signed it, stating I’m a lapsed Catholic, currently an agnostic and a non-believer in hell and that that certain person can tell me to go to hell and it won’t bother me. Later that day, the two people that were the subject of the Christian scolding said they’d join me in the picnic in hell because apparently they’re headed that way too.

I mean, come on! In this day and age, people are so diverse, and in this country people are free to choose. What is with the “you’re different, therefore you’re doomed” thing?  No one can truly be sure they have the “right” religion or that there is even just one “right” religion.  Why should anyone feel more superior to others because they’re in the “right” one? And if the person they’re trying to emulate wasn’t mean to non-believers, why should they be?  What is considered a “sin” might differ from religion to religion, but I do know that discrimination is wrong however you look at it.

And just what makes it so necessary for people to go ranting and telling others how to live their lives, and how and who to worship?  Frankly, I think if someone’s religion is as good as they want people to think, then there won’t be any need to rant or try to convert people. If it’s so good, everyone would go that way. But some people are happy where and how they are…why ruin that?  It’s like they never heard of co-existence. Heck, there was even this person who jumped into the lion’s lair at a zoo in Taiwan to try and convert the lions into Christians. Just how far would people go, really?  And again, what is so wrong about being different?

Now, this Christian, after getting a barrage of tongue-lashing, tried to pull the “persecuted Christian” thing, asking why pagans and other non-believers are free to talk about religion and when a Christian does it he/she gets told to shut up. It just further proved my impression of “how dim the bulb” was.  DUH, the other people weren’t bashing Christians, that’s why.  It’s amazing and pathetic at the same time, how some people’s minds work…or don’t work. This person saw absolutely no difference between someone stating casually that they’re pagan and him telling the pagan she has health problems because she’s pagan and that there is no better time to “come back to the fold”. The pagan didn’t say anything about how everyone should be pagan, now did she?

I appreciate the efforts of missionaries everywhere…but I have to question why they think other people should give up their beliefs in exchange for new ones.  Why not just accept that people are different, and that all the differences make life more interesting?  I would understand why people would want to discourage cannibalism, sure…but to change their whole outlook after they and their ancestors have had the same beliefs, rituals, traditions for centuries?  That’s like erasing a whole different culture for the sake of conformity.

I just really think the world would be a much more peaceful place if everyone could accept that others have different beliefs…and not try to eradicate other religions as long as there is no harm done in the name of the god/gods of the said religions.

Politics…I don’t think there is a right or wrong party to belong to, just decent or unscrupulous politicians.  I don’t really dig the whole party thing.  And I especially don’t dig all the rambling about the negatives of one party or the other. No political discussion stays calm…at one point people just start yelling and arguing at the same time so no one’s really hearing what the other one’s saying.  I see it everyday at work and I am so sick of it.

I don’t understand how people can’t just say “oh, okay” after learning someone has a different party affiliation.  I don’t understand why they have to go and start a whole argument about what this politician did wrong, what that politician can change, why this party sucks, etc.  They are NEVER going to agree anyway, so why even start talking?  It just ruins people’s days, and sometimes it gets in the way of an otherwise nice relationship.

Here’s something that’s sort of political…why do some people feel that democracy will work for every country in the world? Why do they feel the need to go into another country and try to establish a democratic government there when the people did NOT ask for it? Don’t get me wrong, I think democracy is a good thing, but I also think it’s not for everyone.  For all we know, it might just go against other people’s cultures and religions.  Some cultures like to have kings, some prefer tribal chiefs…why go to so much trouble introducing elections and presidents and mayors?

I think there are people who need to be more exposed to life as other people know it.  I think some people need to be sent somewhere they know nothing about with just a few items of clothing, maybe not even that. They need to see how other people live, how their days are spent, what they believe in. Too many people in this country have this “We are so great, you have to be more like us” attitude that makes people elsewhere hate America. And I don’t blame the latter one bit because that attitude is pompous, shallow and groundless.  Tell me this: why should people whose ancestors came over from other countries a few centuries ago and whose culture is a mishmash of those from the countries they originally came from feel superior to people whose ancestors have lived on the same land for a longer time and whose cultures have been around for maybe a millenium? Shouldn’t it be the other way around, if it has to at all be a certain way?

It’s just strange to me how people can feel superior that way and, when you really think about it, they don’t have anything to back that “superiority”…not even their obviously bigger risk of getting skin cancer. And again, what’s so wrong about being different? Why can’t everything be on the same level? I don’t think any one culture, religion, form of government, etc is better than another.  There will always be flaws somewhere, there will always be downsides, there will always be something else out there.  And I don’t see what’s so hard to accept about that.

Okay, I think I’ve pretty much expressed my thoughts on the topic. In closing, I am a lapsed Catholic and I’m not shopping for another religion. I believe there are supernatural beings out there but I don’t know if any one of them created people.  I don’t have any thought on how life started…I want to know why the dinosaurs weren’t in the bible. I don’t believe in hell (I am leaning toward karma and reincarnation). I don’t have any party affiliation.  I think different cultures/religions make life interesting and I think they should be preserved and not erased.  I don’t expect people to agree with me, as I think people should have their own opinions. I don’t aim to change anyone’s way of thinking, just as I wouldn’t want anyone to try and change mine.

So to those who can’t just let people be themselves…to those who think everyone should go in just one direction (boring!)…I have three words for you…LEAVE ME ALONE!
 
 
 10/15/2004
BASIC RESPECT, OR SO I THOUGHT

I thought that there were things that everybody learned in kindergarten or in grade school.  I thought I wasn’t the only one who was taught that anything you borrow from someone else you have to take better care of than you do your own things.  I thought everyone was taught to return the item as soon as they’re done with it so as not to inconvenience the owner, in case he/she needs to use it too. One of the easiest ways to piss me off is to refuse to grow up and take responsibility for items borrowed from me, as I tend to be careful with my things and I pretty much keep track of what I own.

I’m going to be ranting about 2 people here, whose names I will not mention, not because I don’t want to embarrass them but because they’re minors and I’d rather not have an issue with their mom; I have enough trouble with them, I don’t need more problems.

Person #1…impression I got from other people was that she’s responsible…not what I found out.  There was this one pair of black pants she kept on borrowing from me, and I most of the time had to fish out from the dirty laundry pile to wash myself after she was done. Like, I said, I sort of expected my things to be returned to me as soon as the borrower is done, and in a condition not worse than when I lent it out.  So that in itself was a pain, but I didn’t say anything about it. And to digress, I don’t know why on earth she can’t buy herself a pair like it if she needs it so often, considering that she spends hundreds and hundreds of dollars shopping at the mall for clothes…while I browse the clearance and secondhand places for mine.  Go figure!

So, to go back to the topic, I decided the last time she borrowed it that I wasn’t going to ask for it back anymore so that I don’t have to be always thinking of this one item of clothing that’s not in its place.  That way, I thought, it’s not my problem anymore.  Owning it wasn’t worth the trouble of having to look for it everytime I wanted to use it. Well, wouldn’t you know it, one day she comes to me and asks if she could borrow it. And I told her, she hadn’t returned it.  That was the end of that.  Of course I was even less impressed with her then.  It was one thing not to give it back to me clean as soon as she was done with it.  It’s another to lose it.

Same person has lost at least 2 cell phone chargers…and together with person #2, maybe 3 or so.  Personally, I think if someone loses more than 1 charger, that person doesn’t really deserve to have a cell phone. Oh, and did I mention, person #1 once dropped a friend’s cell phone in the jacuzzi? And so…they ended up having to keep on borrowing the charger of my cell phone.  Of course, like usual, I had to go find the charger when I needed it because they don’t give it back or they keep their phones plugged in way after it’s been fully charged.  That got tiring too.  So I thought I’ll be nice and give that one to them, to share, and I got myself a new one. Given their track record I would much rather trust them with the slightly older one.  Everything went fine for a few weeks, and then…guess what?  Someone brought their charger out of the house and person #1 had to borrow mine.

Man, was I incensed. I mean, come on, I get them their own so they can stop bothering me already and so they can maybe learn to share and be more responsible.  And well, that didn’t really work.  They got theirs back in the house, with a lecture from someone else about not taking it out of the house anymore. Hopefully they learned something, but I’m really doubtful. I was so pissed I thought I’d get another charger and give it to one of them for Christmas, so there won’t be any bickering about who used it last and where. I did get another charger just today, make it my backup charger.  In case the other person who did the lecturing earlier softens up again and thinks I should let them borrow mine, then I’ll have my backup. Or in case I decide to strangle someone with the cord of my older one. Sometimes it’s just so unbelievable how dense some people can be.

Anyway, as for person #2, he’d borrowed and ruined at least 2 really fine paint brushes. I love having those really fine ones, for detail work, and one of them was a chinese brush that I loved.  Well, he needed it for his model cars.  And then he neglected to wash them off and return them to me.  I just saw them in the bathroom, caked with paint that won’t come off.  Now, I’m sure there’s some liquid out there that’s designed to deal with that, but you know what? If the paint was washed off the brushes as soon as the painting was done, then there wouldn’t have been any problem.  And if the brushes were returned to me at once, even without having been washed off first, I would’ve taken care of that and I’d still have those 2 brushes. After that I decided, no more lending paint brushes. These things cost quite a bit and I’m not willing to keep buying the fine ones only for other people to ruin them. I think that’s pretty unfair.

And there are a number of other miscellaneous things…colored pencils (found later all scattered on the bedroom floor), scotch tape, etc.  Little things, sure.  But it’s the idea…of respect for other people’s belongings. I myself hate having to borrow things because I don’t want to be an inconvenience to anyone.  And borrowing things implies a responsibility for the items borrowed.  I thought it was common sense that things borrowed are things to be taken care of and returned as soon as possible.  Well, maybe it is and they just don’t have common sense.

I don’t really think I’m asking for too much here. But then again, now that I think of it, they can’t even take care of their own stuff. And I know they spend more on their stuff because they like trendy designer stuff and I don’t. Yet, with such expensive gear, in a week those things can be seen laying on the floor getting stepped on. Really careless and really thoughtless.  I’m sorry but if I spend more than $20 on one item of clothing, that thing will be taken care of like it should and will last me a long time…probably because it’s not a fad that’s going to go out in a month.  I guess there is an underlying problem with the respect for other people’s stuff…there’s the problem of lack of respect for their own stuff. I mean, of course they treat other people’s stuff poorly, they don’t know how else to treat ANY stuff.

It’s a pity though…that they can’t see how lucky they are to have the stuff they have and just be happy with it and take care of it. They keep buying more and trendier and costlier…and they don’t seem to learn to take care of anything, no matter how expensive. I guess when you’re so used to getting stuff so easily it just doesn’t matter to you.  I would love to see person #1 and person #2 grow up and learn to value things around them, but I really, really am doubtful they will.  They just don’t have it in them…I don’t think it’ll happen even if I try to hammer it into them literally…I’d love to try but that’s a no-go.

So anyone out there reading this…basic rules of borrowing stuff:

1. Don’t keep the item longer than you need to. Be aware of when you no longer need it, then return it promptly to the owner. This tells the owner you’re a responsible borrower, and will encourage the lender to let you use their stuff again.

2. Always return the item in a condition the same as or if possible better than when you borrowed it. Again this is to impress the owner and increase the likelihood of you getting to borrow stuff again.

3. Be considerate.  If you know the owner uses it too or might want to use it soon, don’t borrow unless it’s urgent.  Don’t inconvenience people, it’s just not nice.  And if you have the money or will have the money to buy the item that you wanted to borrow, consider buying one yourself especially if you’re going to be using it again and again.  It might not be the fun way to spend your money but it’s worth it in the end.

4. TAKE GOOD CARE OF YOUR OWN THINGS. That way you don’t have to borrow from other people and risk being such pains in the ass.

Getting off my soapbox now.
 
 
 10/15/2004
MY LIFE 101

An assortment of things I’ve learned not too long ago:

1. Kids who have their own TVs in their bedrooms will always fight over what to watch when forced to be in the same hotel room.

2. Sharing the same satellite/dish network with kids in the house means that at one point someone will lose their remote control and someone else’s remote control will periodically disappear.

3. Two bathrooms + one teenage girl = one bathroom you can actually have access to…not to mention countertop space you can use.

4. One trip to the mall + one teenage girl + $300something shopping money = one teenage tantrum right after getting home, for any one of a million (invalid/non-existent/trivial) reasons.

5. One dad with an early morning 4-hour job = a full time chauffeur the rest of the day.

6. One kid + a permission to have one of something = more than one “something” gone.

7. Dislike for reading books and nerds who love books = high school reports with “arn’t”, “havn’t”, “entirly”, “extremly” and the improper usage of “your” and “you’re”.

8. One teenager + a washing machine and dryer = having to pull things out of (or move things around in) one or the other or both to do your own laundry, half the time.

9. Two teenagers + a washing machine and dryer = having to pull things out of (or move things around in) one or the other or both to do your own laundry, ALL the time.

10.  One teenage girl + an overly full social life + a cat = things getting dragged into the neglected litter box.

11.  A newspaper business + a cat + a dog + someone who reads newspapers on the floor = a carpet of newspapers.

12.  Kid + portable CD player = AA batteries missing from remote control = “I can’t hear you, Dad”.

13.  It’s not funny when an American kid’s almost an adult and actually thinks a meadow is a big lake.

14.  One trip to the mall + one teenage girl + $300something shopping money = 10 items at the most + “Dad, there’s this one more item that I wanted but didn’t have the money for.”

15.  One teenage girl + one trip to the mall “because I need jeans” = 8 shirts, 1 skirt, 2 pairs of shorts and NO jeans.

16.  One kid + one friend = mild headache in the car during a trip/commute.

17.  One kid + 2 friends = migraine in the car during a trip/commute.

18.  Volunteer chaperone + one bus full of 5th graders + Christmas not too far off = chaperone getting brain cancer + eternal hatred for Christmas songs.

19.  Teenage girl + cookie dough + brownie mix = 2 sinks piled high with everything from the cupboards + big bowl of cookie dough sitting in bedroom (unbaked) for a week.

20.  Grocery list totalling less than $10 + coupons for things not on shopping list = $25 spent on groceries.

21.  Need to look for something in a teenage girl’s room = 1 jungle safari trip.

22.  Teenager + dishes = science fair projects sitting on the dresser in the closet. IGOR, IT’S ALIVE!!!
 
 
 10/12/2004
AND THEN THERE WERE NONE

On the last day of June this year, I lost my grandpa.  Which one, you might ask. It’s weird…maybe it’s because my other grandpa had so many grandkids and we never really lived with him for some time that I never really bonded with him. So when I say “my grandpa”, that would be my mom’s dad.  Likewise with my grandma. My other grandma (my dad’s mom) died when I was a toddler so I don’t remember her at all).  It was my mom’s parents that seemed to always be there.

Hindsight is always 20/20. Why do you think you feel guilty about not doing more for someone after he/she passes away?  It’s human nature, I guess, to take for granted that tomorrow that person will still be there doing the same old things that they always did for you. Hence, the feeling that you were too mean, you didn’t thank them enough, you didn’t say all the things you wanted to say, after you realize it’s too late.  I went through that both times I lost my grandparents on my mom’s side. I lost my grandma in March of 1998.

I guess I just never really imagined any of them dying.  If I remember correctly, they brought my grandma in for a checkup after she got dizzy and collapsed, or something like that. I wasn’t living with her at the time, so I don’t know the specifics. Next thing I know, she was confined in the hospital and she didn’t like it one bit.  I don’t blame her, I hate hospitals myself. I don’t know why, but I sure as hell better not get in a situation where I need to be confined or operated on.  So far so good, I haven’t had the need to be in a hospital unless it’s visiting someone.  Anyway, she hated it when they had to put a tube down her throat to suck mucus out of her lungs. Someone had to be holding her hand through that. A few times it was me…not that I was in any position to comfort her, that scared me too.

I always thought she was going to come out of that.  But day after day after day, she didn’t really get better.  Then they had to move her to the ICU. That was really tough on her…and me. Her being in a private room was bad enough…the ICU was just something of a nightmare.  Once she was conscious and I was in there.  She was crying, she couldn’t talk because she had some tube in her mouth, but she made hand signals.  And she wanted to go back to her private room.  That really really hurt me so much, because I knew I couldn’t do anything, and I didn’t like it either that she was in the ICU.  At that point, I had my sister go in there to comfort her.  I wasn’t going to be of any help, I was crying myself. It was scary and sad, seeing her so helpless and not being in any position to help.

After that day I basically dreaded being there when she was awake. I didn’t want her asking me again to please have someone get her back to her old room.  But she was unconscious most of the time then.  It just looked bleaker and bleaker as the days passed.  The night before she died, I was supposed to stay there, outside the ICU, but for some reason I don’t remember I didn’t.  The next day, I was eating a late breakfast I think, and someone called, my dad answered.  And we learned she was gone.  Although she’d been in the hospital for a month, it still came as a shock.  And then I felt so guilty for not being there; it just really felt so bad that I wasn’t there.

I never really thought about how dependent I was on her and just how spoiled I was till she was gone.  Immediately I regretted the times when I got a bit upset after she “saved” my brother from being punished by me. The funny thing about it was when she was upset with him, she’d use me as a sort of threat to him. She always made sure that there was some supper left for me if I was coming home late. She refused to let me do the dishes, and she sometimes did my laundry too. I got off easy with her around and I didn’t even know it.  She was just always there and I didn’t really pay attention.

When my grandpa died, I’d been away for about 1 1/2 years. And he’d been sick for more than a year when I left. He just gradually got worse. I thought it would be special if I got married on his birthday…although with his memory failing him, I doubted he’d remember.  I just wanted his birthday to be my wedding anniversary, that was sort of a little tribute of mine.  That way everytime Scott and I celebrate our anniversary, we celebrate my grandpa’s birthday as well. I had hoped to have a ceremony here sometime, have my grandpa walk me down the aisle.  I thought that would be cool…but it was not to be.

I felt so bad when I learned that my grandpa misunderstood the plans.  I left the night before my flight out, with my mom, to pick up Scott at the airport (he came so I don’t have to fly to the US alone)…and we also had to pick up my dad (who cut his Italy trip short to see me before I go).  The plan was, we pick up the guys, and my parents drop Scott and me off at the hotel where we spend the few hours between his arrival and our departure.  When they got home, my grandpa was still up and it seemed he expected us back there.  That really broke my heart.

The first few months here in MN were depressing. There was the weather and climate to get used to, new people, new everything…and there was this thought that I probably won’t see my grandpa alive again.  I cried about that a few times…well, that and some other things, it just got all mixed up it was hard to tell them apart. I did manage to write a letter to my grandpa telling him the stuff I can’t possibly tell him face to face. I’m not a verbal type of person. If there’s something really serious I have to say I just have to write it down…I’d cry before I can say it out loud.  And my grandpa wasn’t really the expressive type either. The only time I saw him and my grandma kiss was on their golden anniversary, I don’t remember them hugging, I don’t remember him saying “I love you” to anyone.  But he showed it in other ways.

I will always be grateful to him for all the summers when I was a kid till I was in college that he paid for workshops for us.  I learned to play the organ and the piano, learned to speak English better, learned to paint (quite well if I may say so myself), because he had us enrolled in summer workshops.  He and my grandma always took us shopping sometime between the birthday and Christmas, and it was always at this one bookstore where they said we can pick out what we want.  I kept coming back to that bookstore for years after that.  My grandpa loved learning…he read a lot, he watched TV a lot, he was great with trivia, he had a great memory and lots of stories to tell.  He was just amazing.  I remember when we were kids, we’d call him up for help with homework because he was so knowledgeable about so many things.

I appreciated him more after my grandma died.  Suddenly he was the only grandparent left and suddenly there was this awareness that he wasn’t going to be around forever.  And there was this sadness in the thought that he was alone and he probably wasn’t so happy with that, having gotten used to having my grandma around.

I know it as hard on him after he got sick.  Someone so independent and active like him, suddenly can’t go places alone, or even do the usual things he does at the church. Someone who had great memories of things past, suddenly can’t remember the names of everyday things, like bananas. I know it frustrated him no end, and he probably got even more frustrated after I left. When I left he was still walking, he was still somewhat fine.  After I left, he got worse, he needed a wheelchair, and there was the occasional transfusion made more complicated with his blood type being so rare and his sickness having to do with blood. I knew it just really upset him that it had to be that way.

I can’t imagine how hard it was for him the last few months, having to depend on people to feed him and dress him. And it didn’t feel so good at all being so far away. He wasn’t even gone and I was already having that guilt thing about not being able to do anything for him…not that I would’ve been of any help.  I probably would’ve broken down just seeing him so helpless.

I had the most wonderful dream one night…I was at a party, and my grandpa dropped in.  We didn’t speak, we just waltzed. It was so nice…realizing he didn’t get to do that at my 18th birthday because I ended up not having a party, and he didn’t get to do that either when I got married because it was a civil ceremony and there wasn’t a proper reception afterwards.  That was such a nice dream, but scary at the same time. I wanted to tell Scott but someone told me before, if you have a nice dream don’t tell anyone about it or it won’t come true. So I chose not to tell.  I woke up, we went to work, right after we were done that morning, my mom called and told me my grandpa was gone.

I was afraid of that…in the back of my mind, that was why the dream scared me a bit. Knowing he wasn’t doing so well, I thought maybe that could be his way of saying he’s going.  And I blocked that out, at least till my mom called.  And then I knew that was it. In a way it felt good to know he didn’t just go without letting me know in his own way.

I kind of feel sorry, that time I dreamt of my grandma shortly after she died. I dreamt I woke up and I turned and she was laying next to me on the bed.  Needless to say that really startled me and in my dream I told her not to appear like that again. And she didn’t.  When I woke up and realized it was just a dream…and that I might have just driven her away, I was immediately sorry I told her off.  She still appeared in dreams, sure, but more like an extra in the scene, not directly talking to me. I wish I hadn’t been such a scaredycat, maybe she wanted to tell me something.

They were really special people, and I consider myself lucky for having had them for my grandparents.  Pity my grandma didn’t live to see me get married, pity my grandpa didn’t get to walk me down the aisle. But that’s how life is.  Things don’t always happen the way I want them to…especially now I don’t have my grandparents to help me along.

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New Blog!!!! Yippeee!!! Okay, so I’m not really that excited, but…

August 16, 2006 by annadulcekelly.

This will make it so much easier to post stuff, unlike how I was doing it before.  Well, technically, that wasn’t really a blog I was doing before, I just had a makeshift one.  This should make it easier, and if I find that this is more convenient, I will take the other one down and just work with this.  I am going to post my old blogs here, just for the sake of having just one place for all my rants…here goes…

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